New NY Times Poll Shows Overwhelming Number of Americans Want Universal Healthcare
According to a recent NY Times poll, the American people are in a very different place on healthcare than the current administration. 64% of Americans believe the government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans (against only 27% who say it should not), and it doesn't stop there...
84% want to expand CHIP (the Children's Health Insurance Program) to cover all uninsured children.
Poll numbers that huge don't happen every day, and present an opportunity for our representatives in Washington to do the right thing and act on this huge groundswell of support for health care reform.
But ask yourself; are these numbers really surprising at all? Considering that 6 in 10 Americans say someone in their household has gone without medical care because of costs which weren’t covered by their insurance. It’s all too clear that the middle class is getting hit hard by our current healthcare crisis. Americans are fed up and want change, and they’re wiling to put their money where their mouths are on this issue:
60% said they would be willing to pay more in taxes for universal health care (including 62% of Independents and 46% of Republicans).
And in perhaps the most glaring example I've seen so far of how the priorities of the Bush Administration are not the priorities of the American middle class:
Nearly 8 in 10 Americans (against only 18%) believe it's more important to provide universal access to healthcare than to extend the recent Bush tax cuts.
The middle class is saying it's time for a change, is Washington D.C. listening?
(the full article and poll can be found below:)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/washington/02poll.html?ex=1330578000&en=0265ea7c947d89e9&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Comments (2)
Asking Americans this question is problematic, unless you've got numbers for them to consider. By that I mean if we have a UHC plan here's how much your taxes will rise. Do you want to pay this much for the benefit?
Agriculture probably comes closest to health care as a "market of necessity" -- ie... you've got to have food to survive. Our approach to that fundamental need has been to provide massive subsidies to the producers of ag products. Despite the corruption and waste, one can argue that this policy has been a huge success in keeping food prices stable since the 50's, and this has helped the poor classes more than any other. Farmers losses in the markets are made up by government payments.
Would the same approach work with health care? It seems to me that we need to tackle the problem of unstable, rising prices. That would mean huge increases in grants to pharmaceuticals and hospitals (the producers) as opposed to a bottom-up approach of subsidizing consumers. The market still sets the price, but the subsidized production costs lower prices across the board.
March 3, 2007 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think food prices would be low regardless, although there might be more seasonal fluctuations and a greater effect of shortages. Some food products would always be cheap, although milk or sugar might go up and down a bit more.
March 15, 2007 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink