THE COOK REPORT
Reflex Responses On Health Bill
by Charlie Cook
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Let me just briefly stop here to point out that while it's possible the title for this column was selected by someone else, fact is that what the House and Senate recently sent to the President's desk was not a "health bill." While some of us were hoping for a comprehensive reform of how medical and surgical services are funded in the U.S., what was actually produced was an effort to reform and regulate the health insurance middlemen. That it was about insurance is important. As is the fact that the word "insurance" does not appear in Cook's analysis. Funny that.
But, let's continue with Charlie:
No matter how talented the pollster, the results of any survey conducted the day after an event ought to be taken with quite a few grains of salt. Nevertheless, the outcome of the Monday night USA Today/Gallup Poll, which checked the nation's pulse less than 24 hours after the House passed its massive health care package, demonstrates that seemingly huge, consequential events can have a rather small impact on public opinion if the topic has been debated ad infinitum.
Now, there's what I call a preconceived notion--the idea that pollstering is a talent. Never mind that "the results of any survey" should always be suspect, considering what unreliable reporters people who are willing to answer strange questions are. Moreover, while the reference to the nation's pulse is clever, since the nation's health is at issue, the suggestion that the answers to irrelevant questions are in any way equivalent to measuring a heart beat is silly. And so is the implied suggestion that public opinion is similarly responsive to an event as blood is to being pumped.
Then there's the notion that one man's opinion is determined by what another does. The American public has not been debating either care, insurance or funding and certainly not "ad infinitum." Tellingly, Cook doesn't even specify what the "topic" is. The "massive health care package" would be more accurately characterized as an obfuscation--familiar to anyone who's into wrapping Christmas presents.
That there is any connection between the length of a debate and public opinion is totally unsubstantiated. It would make more sense to suggest that the effort to address a half century old problem had simply left people numb.
And still, it wasn't about health care. It was about insurance--an issue that was left out of the poll questions. Perhaps that's where talent comes in; asking off-topic opinions and pretending the answers are relevant.
The 1,005 adults interviewed were first told, "As you may know, yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that restructures the nation's health care system."
You see, that's a lie? If we even have a health care system in the U.S., rather than overlapping and redundant and insufficient providers and patients scrabbling to stay alive, then it wasn't restructured by the bill Congress passed. What was being addressed was how compensation for services is delivered to the providers of necessary services and whether insurance companies are going to add some value or continue to collect income for doing nothing. But, that's not what was asked.
Then they were asked, "All in all, do you think it is a good thing or a bad thing that Congress passed this bill?" Overall, 49 percent responded that it was good, 40 percent said that it was bad, and 11 percent had no opinion. (You've gotta love those 11 percent of folks who have listened to all of this arguing and still don't know or don't care.)
That's really a rude comment on top of an idiotic question. Aside from the fact that passing bills is a Congressional obligation, you'd think that a person who makes a living supposedly assessing public opinion would have more respect than to dismiss people not inclined to answering irrelevant questions with an ironic aside. Lots of people have better things to do than to reach conclusions on the basis of other people's arguments.
Can the insurance industry be reformed? One day, one month, one year is probably too early to tell. But don't tell that to he Oracle at Delphi.
Why do we pay good money to middlemen, insurance companies and pundits?
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