What America Wants

The PCCC sponsored a poll to get opinions of Americans on different variants of health care reform.

A new poll suggests that voters are not pleased by the idea of health insurance mandates without a public option or a Medicare expansion.

Conducted by Research 2000 for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), the survey finds only 33 percent of likely voters favor a health care bill that does not include a public health insurance option and does not expand Medicare, but does require all Americans to get health insurance. Slightly more Democrats -- 37 percent -- favor the idea, while only 30 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of independents do.

Meanwhile, if the public option and Medicare buy-in are added, 58 percent of people support the idea. The number of Republican supporters drops to 22 percent, but independent support rises to 57 percent and Democratic support to a whopping 88 percent.

"This poll shows voters in full-blown revolt against the Senate bill," said PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor. "Only one-third of voters support mandates without a public option, while nearly two-thirds want the public option and Medicare expansion. This will be a disaster of epic proportions for Democrats in 2010 if it's not fixed -- fast."… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Common Dreams>

To clarify this putting the public option and Medicare buy-in back into the health care reform bill loses 8% of Republicans, but gains 26% of Independents, 51 of Democrats and 25% of all voters.  We knew that the American people wanted real reform, but now we can quantify it and the people’s preference is overwhelming.  Democrats have a choice.  At least try to give the people what we want or try to cram what we don’t want down our throats.  If we try and and the GOP and Blue Dogs block it, they will face the voters’ ire.  If we don’t try, we will.