The Kaiser Health tracking poll is out, and lo and behold, Americans are confused.
The first Kaiser Health Tracking Poll fielded since the passage of health reform last month finds that 8 in 10 Americans know that President Obama signed the legislation into law. But 55 percent say they are confused about the law and more than half (56%) say they don’t yet have enough information to understand how it will affect them personally.
I suspect it is no coincidence that the biggest group - one third - got most of their health reform news from cable TV. But as has been shown time and time again:
The poll finds that the public supports many of the provisions of health reform that are set to be implemented in the short term. When asked about 11 specific provisions scheduled to take effect this year, in each case a majority of Americans viewed them favorably, often with bipartisan support.
Current numbers?
Still, the public remains divided on the law overall, with 46 percent viewing it favorably, 40 percent unfavorably and 14 percent undecided. Similarly, 31 percent of Americans say they expect personally to be better off because of the law, while 32 percent say they will be worse off and 30 percent say they don’t expect to be affected.
People don't mind being unaffected or doing better, but they do mind doing worse. They especially mind doing worse when someone else is doing better (human nature being what it is.) These are, therefore, encouraging numbers still in flux; the chance to define what "health reform" means to people is still an open window. This explains why the poll numbers for Obama and Dems haven't changed much, but there's plenty of upside here that will remain "potential only" until people have more time to digest the bill and the explanations. Look at the numbers:
and compare this to pre-passage numbers to see improvement in support over time:
Put another way, I'd rather explain supporting health reform than opposing financial reform.