![[Nameplate]](http://www.gcdailyworld.com/images/nameplate.png)
|
|
~ High: 83°F ~ Low: 56°F Wednesday, May 23, 2012 |
|
Majority against the Healthcare Bill? Numbers Say Different.Posted Thursday, March 25, 2010, at 3:14 PM
I have heard many people throughout this past week say the Healthcare bill that passed the House went against the will of the people. In other words, a majority of Americans were against the Healthcare bill. I thought about this and did some research to really see if a said "majority" against the Healthcare bill existed. The findings will be disliked by conservatives.
When it comes to public opinion, one looks at the polls. It is not a scientific thought, just common sense and a natural movement to find polling numbers, so what I did was nothing different than anyone else. Having said that, I first looked at the Gallup Poll. When asked if the passage of the Healthcare bill is a good thing or a bad thing, 49% of National Adults said it was a good thing, whereas 40% of National Adults said it was a bad thing, and 11% held no opinion. 46% of Independents said it was a good thing, while 45% said it was a bad thing with 10% had no opinion. Among Democrats, 79% claimed it to be a good thing with only 9% saying it was a bad thing, and 12% had no opinion. Among Republicans, 14% said it was a good thing, whereas 76% held it was a bad thing and only 10% held no opinion. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/126929/Slim-Margin-Americans-Support-Healthcare-Bill-Passage.aspx)
If looking at the emotional response of the bill's passage, national adults do not have a majority feeling that lean one way or the other. 82% of Democrats have positive feelings toward the passed bill, while 79% of Republicans have negative feelings about the same bill. Independents narrowly feel more negatively than positively toward the health care bill (47% to 45%) and National Adults tend to be more positive than negative by 8 percentage points (50% to 42%) (http://www.gallup.com/poll/126929/Slim-Margin-Americans-Support-Healthcare-Bill-Passage.aspx).
Then I looked at CBS March 22nd and 23rd (2010) polling numbers and found that no majority of respondents disapprove (or approve) of the Healthcare bill when asked if they approve or disapprove of the current bill (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/12/politics/main3362530.shtml?tag=related).
From the above findings, more respondents disapprove of the Healthcare bill than approve, but only by 4 percentage points. With a slim difference, nothing definitive can be said with honesty. That means that because 46% of the respondents disapproved of the Healthcare bill that that side should not speak for the majority of the participants or of the American people. This is because 42% of respondents approved of the Healthcare bill.
According to CNN and CBS polls, respondents disapprove of the Republicans on Healthcare than the Democrats. 56% disapproved of the Democrats' handling of Healthcare, whereas 63% disapproved of the Republicans' management of Healthcare. In the same poll, only 25% approved of the way Republicans handled Healthcare, while 38% approved of the way Democrats treated Healthcare. Furthermore a CNN poll asked who participants trusted more to handle major changes in the country's health care system: the Democrats in Congress or the Republicans in Congress. 45% said Democrats while Republicans received 39% support (http://www.pollingreport.com/health.htm).
While talking heads on 24-hour news shows on both television and radio claim the majority of Americans are not in support of this Healthcare bill, the numbers state otherwise. In looking at the polls, a majority on this issue does not exist (except the American people trust Democrats in Congress with Healthcare than Republicans in Congress). There are many other polls to find, but when Republicans, conservative talking heads, or anyone claim "a majority of Americans do not support this Healthcare bill," hard facts do not hold up that claim.
So is it really a "majority?" Not at all, and where they get this notion is from the loud minority. The only thing to keep the lies of the slime machine wing of the Republican Party quiet is with polling numbers on the issues. This is no different.
Till Next Time
Comments Showing comments in chronological order [Show most recent comments first] |
Hot topics The Grand Finale(8 ~ 11:53 AM, Aug 11)
For The Dads
The Once and Future Subject
Personal Story
Mom's Day
|
Email link
Read comments (25)
Blog archive
![[Feed icon]](http://www.gcdailyworld.com/images/icons/feed-icon-14x14.png){kind=icon}
Polls can and always have been misleading. I personally have only talked to two people who supported this health care. Both of them didn't even read it.
Instead of reading polls, try talking to real people.
ok the poll is important when it sides with you, but not when it doesn't. It goes for both sides. All the polls really do is prove the president right in this case. He said that the people were very angry with the process, and that when it was passed the poll numbers would go up. What I think is important is that experts like most doctors and the AMA are behind it full force. You think we would at least listen to people who have extreme experience in this area. Polls just aren't really that important.
73% of all statistics are nonsense.
Polls may be skewed, but by who. Is it the millions of dollars worth of ads against it...or the new ads for it.
I think most people want some type of healtcare reform, but very few people know exactly what that might look like. It is very complex, not sure if it worthy of its current number of pages, but it would have to be rather large to cover the broad spectrum of issues.
No bill will keep everyone happy, but I hope this is what America needs...and not what a few want.
Are you all joking? Seriously?
We live in a fish bowl here. Copycat opinions within a tight community afraid of change.
These polls are national reactions. Just because Greene County is conservative and apparently only has a single point of view does not mean that point of view is representative of the entire country.
I know several people in other states who do NOT share Greene county's only opinion. These are some very highly educated, well read individuals who have done the research and do know what they are talking about.
But this little microcosm is not THE ONLY opinion, and the polls reveal that. We should not be so ignorant as to suggest the polls are skewed just because we don't like the results. That's not just wearing rose colored glasses, that's stapling them on your forehead.
I often read poll results I don't like. But I don't pretend they're inaccurate because I don't like the results. It's a fact. Facts should be accepted.
The truth is there are a lot of people who feel very strongly - both ways. And everyone has a right to their point of view. What gets me is the fact that in Greene County, if the wrong person holds a favorable view, he/she can't express it because it could cost them their job. Literally, I know of someone in that position. Being in fear of your job over an OPINION. Are we really still in the 1950's where someone could be fired for voicing an opinion? Oh, yes. Absolutely.
I don't think polls are skewed. I just think they change so fast they are kind of useless. Polls said John McCain would most likely win Indiana, but that didn't happen. The healthcare bill is a pretty good bill by the way.
Short explanation:
The national polls should be taken with a grain of salt. The CNN and CBS or any other network poll should be taken with an entire salt block.
Long explanation:
To fully understand the significance of these polls, you need to have some knowledge of statistics and how polls work.
The CNN, CBS, and other "media polls" are answered only by people that are watching the show or see the website. That selects a specific group of people that don't necessarily reflect the population of everyone in America.
Suppose you want to know what people living in Terre Haute think is the best fast food restaurant. So you go to the mall one day and stand by a door and ask the people leaving or entering their opinion. You only get data from people who are at the mall on that day, during the time you're standing by the door. You automatically impose bias in your results since a lot of people were not at the mall that day. There's no way to tell how that affected the results. There's a chance it reflects the opinion of everyone in Terre Haute but there is a greater chance your results are skewed, but you have no way of knowing.
There are mathematical methods to find the sample size, the number of people to call to get results that accurately reflect the entire population of Terre Haute without having to talk to every one in Terre Haute. You need to make sure your sample represents the actual population of Terre Haute, rich/poor, skinny/fat, black/white/asian, etc. That most likely will not happen with a poll on a TV show or webiste.
The best way to find out what the population of Terre Haute thinks is the best fast food restaurant is to get a list of everyone living in Terre Haute and contact them all. That would take too much time and money so a good way to get a feel for the entire population thinks is to randomly select a group of the population to contact where everyone, not just people at the mall on a certain day, has an equal chance to answer.
National polls, like Gallup or Rasmussen, take use something like that process to conduct polls so the results are more accurate than CNN or CBS. They conduct surveys by randomly selecting people to answer. Essentially, everyone in America has an equal chance of being contacted. And the results better reflect the subsets of America, black/white/asian/mexican, rich/poor/middle class, urban/rural, etc.
The Gallup poll was conducted one day after passage so it gives an immediate public reaction. 49% approval is a very slim margin and may change over time. It showed what we already know; Democrats are majority in favor, Independents are split and Republicans are majority opposed.
On March 9, Gallup released a similar poll that showed 48% disapproval and 45% approval. So opinions change.
Rasmussen released a poll on March 25 showing 55% support repealing the bill while only 41% support the bill.
I could care less about polls....except when they take place in May or November.
What I do know is this. Most people that I know don't like having something rammed down their throats by a back-door, back-room congress. We all agree that reform needs to take place. Those in health care lament of how badly Medicare and Medicaid work. Miles and miles of red tape and slow or no reimbursement of the costs. It is hard for me to understand how our government can do a good job with Obamacare when they are failing miserably with what has already been undertaken!
President Obama is determined to push his platform through no matter what anyone thinks! Maybe some of you think he is the greatest thing since bottled beer and sliced bread, but he does not have me fooled!
Here's a poll for you:
Approval ratings for Nancy Pelosi- 11%
" " " Harry Reid - 8%
Let's put them in charge of something big, like America's financial and health future.
What a bunch of scammers and thieves!
Drew,
I liked this blog. Then I got to the next to last sentence.
Its all a bunch of nonsense, lets just impeach Obama and get a president in there who truly loves America and wants what is best for the American people. All Obama wants is his way,like a spoiled kid and he will do anything, including LIES to get it. He lied thru his campaign to get elected and he continues to do so. And polls or no polls, most American people were against this HealtCare Plan.
I just wanted to show everyone this tidbit from the Gallup poll:
Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,005 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted March 22, 2010, as part of Gallup Daily tracking. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.
and this one:
N=1,500 adults nationwide (from http://www.pollingreport.com/health.htm)
This is an extremely small sampling of the nation. I suspect that this is true of most polls, so it is difficult to rely on them, no matter what your opinion may be. I reserve the right to be corrected on this point of view if someone sees something different.
JShafford, a small sample is used for the vast majority, if not all, polls because it would be expensive and take a long time to ask everyone in the United States. The most important thing is "equal probability"; you have to ensure that everyone in the population has an equal chance of being contacted. Common sense tells us that a sample of 20 people probably isn't a large enough sample but we don't have time or money to ask everyone.
How many people should we ask? Depends on how "sure" we want to be (confidence level) and population size. Confidence level (how sure you are) is expressed as a percentage of how often you are right. At a 95% confidence level, if a survey is conducted 100 times, 95 times the results will be right, 5 times you will be wrong. Higher confidence means larger sample.
You can be 100% confident if you ask everyone in the United States, BUT....how long does it take and how much does it cost to get the results of the Census? Now imagine we did that for every survey.
I don't remember the formula but there are online calculators:
http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm
The link above gives a sample size of 600, for a 95% confidence level with 4% margin of error (or confidence interval) with a population size of 307,006,500 (Census Bureau estimated number of people 18 or older in 2008). Confidence interval is the plus/minus figure given with statistical results. It gives the range of the results; in this case between 53% and 45% of Americans think passage of the health care bill was a good thing but we can't know the exact percentage unless we ask everyone. If this survey is conducted 100 times, we can expect the results to be between 53% and 45%, 95 times. But 5 times, the results will be outside that range.
The sample of 600 people sounds small but if the sample is selected correctly, it can be expected to accurately represent the entire population. Gallup has designed their surveys to use the larger sample size of between 1,000 and 2,000 people. This makes their results more accurate with a minimal increase in cost and time.
An explanation from a Gallup pollster can be found here:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/101872/how-do...
Thank you if you bothered to read all that.
In short, polls are meant to represent opinions/beliefs of a population based on a sample. If they are performed correctly, the results are reliable. However, polls are by no means, meant to "prove" or "disprove" anything. They are only indicators of opinion. Since our opinions and beliefs are affected by mood and other factors, polls will change over time.
11%??? 8%??? What in the world is that little nugget of knowledge. Both seem to have little problems getting elected in their home state, so what are these figures from?
Impeach Obama? How can any rational person respond to that...you can't.
Is it that Obama lied...or is he actually doing what he said...and you just don't like it. I had 8 years of not liking what our last president did...doesn't mean we should have impeached him.
GCC,
Yes, Obama did lie. He promised transparency in the formation of health care reform. Did that happen? NO. His back room, under the table dealings just led to the largest tax increase in American history.
Response?
Will my taxes go up? If so, which ones?
The president and Tim Geitner are already investigating a national sales tax to offset the healthcare bill's huge deficit producing outcome. It is the largest entitlement in the past 50-60 years and this country cannot pay for it without higher taxes.
This month, our expenditures outspent our income for just the social security program. This is a warning to what is ahead for this wonderful country which was founded on the principal of personal freedom, not government control.
As for trying to have open conversations about healthcare...did you forget the fiascos about a year ago with the town meeting approaches. That was both sides fault. Democrats were playing their cards too close(most didn't seem to know exactly what was in it due to the length and little time to read it), while the Republicans and other groups spread misinformation, 1/2 truths, and major assumptions to stir the pot. I personally would have liked to have seen an intelligent open debate, but that wasn't what we got. I'm not drinking the Obama kool-aid...I have some real concerns with things, but the mess goes both ways. Neither the Democrats or Republicans are particularly helpful when the other is in control. Seems control is more important than doing something that help the people.
So a sales tax increase is bad when Obama suggests it, but OK if Mitch Daniels does? I personally don't like either, but programs aren't free.
Geesh, you might as well have said nothing.
The Constitution is not a document to be circumvented, by anyone. You'll see how the Supreme Court rules on this 10th ammendment battle(it will come down to Justice Kennedy's ruling). When it is circumvented, we lose our civility and common sense. Fraud, theft and chaos then become the norm.
Taxes are bad, in all cases. Our government is not responsible with our money.
I met a man at the tea party in Washington. He was a business owner. I spoke to him about why he was there and why I was there. We both are ready to claim independence from both parties but are still constitutionally conservative. Therefore, we will support whichever candidate supports our view, democrat or republican. However, he said, as far as taxes go, that when he was a boy (and because he is a black man from Chicago), he was a democrat because he thought all people should have the same wealth. As he graduated from college, he opened a grocery store and now has three of them. He said as he started to earn his money from his own risk-taking and his own work, that he decided he could better decide where to spend his money, as opposed to the government. He said he had to become a republican to protect his family and HIS income. He wrote a check to the federal government last year for $122,000, not including payroll, soc. security, insurance for his employees and other operating costs. He said he was angry when Obama said he could be more patriotic by paying more taxes. We both disagreed with the abortion support and the forced healthcare purchases in the bill(among the 157 new agencies the bill creates).
I am in his boat. I just hope the boat doesn't sink with our children and grandchildren in it.
my personal opinion is obama is a crook and put this this country deeper in debtb and shoved this helthcare crap down our throats impeach him be fore its to late we dont need a lier for presedent
50% of the time, it works 100% of the time... Polls are opinions, not facts, as has been claimed in the blog and several responses. Let's all agree to some rules to arguing. Polling has a theoretical margin for error and is temporary depending on what and how the persons being polled are asked. What I mean is; how much research has been done by the individual before they are polled? The research is also flawed, because someone else has reported their findings and inevitably inserted their own bias, and the researcher may not take that into concideration. Do you see where I'm going here? This response is just my opinion, but someone may believe what I'm writing. It's a virtual rabbit hole once you begin to question. I don't like polls and I believe that is sort of what Drew was trying to get across. Either that or he just wanted to try to make the "talking heads" from the side he doesn't support seem like hot air. If that is the case, then Drew needs to sound less like the people he is trying to belittle.
My opinion: I don't like the size of the healthcare reform bill. It is too inclusive and therefore too expensive.
What exactly would be the charges against Obama for impeachment. Spending too much money would have gotten well over half of our president's impeached. Wasn't Andrew Jackson the last president to have zero debt. As for a lie, that only works if the president is under oath...that is also a tough sell.
As for following the constitution, are we talking just the original...the original with the Bill of Rights...or our current Constitution. It is a living document that can be altered and added to. I believe there is an amendment talking about federal taxes...of course it has been highly debated...but it is part of it.
GCC: 1 oBaMa has never proven his birth, which is covered as a qualification for that position.
Our current Constitution is the same Old Original Constitution it does not change, just the way some people try to distort it to their advantage. the Bill of Rights are to further protect WE the People from our Government.There is no amendment "talking about federal taxes".
Our Country had no taxes upon WE the People, as our Country had Import Taxes these were imposed on all products, goods that were brought into our Country.
They started with a farce, like the one you have just witnessed, in the 1930's they tried to pass this tax deal that they have everyone tied into today. it never was ratified but was later crammed down everyone's throat. I did not like, My Father did not like, nor did My Grandfather. I pity My Sons and Grandson. and many other Sons and Grandsons...
16th amendment- The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
So since the original Constitution does leave the opening for amendments...don't we follow it as well. Sounds like you are no different than anybody else that interpets the Constitution for their own liking. Or maybe you just don't like additions to the constitution. If so, mark out the Bill of Rights because they were added too.
Just because some talking head on some conservative radio show says Obama wasn't born in the US....doesn't make it so. Also according to the current interpretation of natural born citizenship...all a citizen would have to prove is that they were born to American parent(s). Of course that has been debated of the years.
The 30's and the current monies spent both have a little in common besides the amount of debt. They were both done to try and prevent/improve an economic collapse.