Polls Show Public May Not Know What It Wants on Health Care Law

WASHINGTON -- Another day, another health care poll.

The latest CBS News poll shows 55 percent oppose Republican efforts to cut funding for the new health care law.

Democratic rapid-response teams quickly e-mailed the CBS poll. It bolstered their argument that GOP efforts to get around the Senate's refusal to vote on repeal by zeroing out funding will backfire politically down the road.

Yet the survey also tracked others in giving Republicans something to crow about: 51 percent said they disapprove of the law vs. 33 percent who approve.

Further in the weeds, however, opinion was almost evenly divided over whether the law would
make the health care system better, with 21 percent saying it would and 23 percent saying it would not.

However, the most interesting data point -- and one that may explain such seemingly incongruous attitudes -- was this: 44 percent said they don't know enough to predict what the law's impact will be. And that uncertainty, CBS said, has increased since the controversial law was passed nearly a year ago.

"The health care bill was very complicated, and the CBS poll shows a significant amount of 'no opinion' depending on the question," said Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

While attitudes about the health care law have remained fairly static, Keeter suggests the talking points offered by opponents may be too simplistic.

"Clearly there are many conservatives who simply do not think the government should be doing this at all, and their opposition is strong and principled and probably cannot be shaken," he said. "But that's not the entire story of public concern about the legislation."

According to Pew surveys, some opponents favor many parts of the health care law but aren't sure the government is up to the task of implementing them.

A recent poll revealed that about as many favor expanding the health care law as want to repeal it. One in five wants to leave it as it is.

When Gallup asked Americans before the House voted to repeal the law whether they favored the move, 46 percent said yes. But 40 percent said no. Another 14 percent had no opinion.

"Whenever you have widely varying poll results among respected nonpartisan pollsters, it tells you that people are confused about the topic. They are responding more to the specific wording of the questions than anything else," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "Despite long months of debate, a large portion of the public doesn't understand exactly what was done or what effect the health care law is going to have on them long term."

Partisans, recalling the old adage that "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics," don't see it that way.

Polls conducted by Republican pollsters tend to favor the GOP point of view on health care. Likewise, surveys conducted by Democratic polling outfits usually trend Democratic. And in all polls, Republicans, Democrats and independents tend to pool together in their opinions.

"Polls can be written in a way the writer wants to see the outcome," said Todd Cefaratti, executive director of TheTeaParty.net. "For any poll that says the majority of Americans do not want to defund 'Obamacare,' I can send you many others that say the opposite."

"It may be that when the public is asked about defunding, to them it sounds like a slick inside-the-Beltway political maneuver, and if so they would react negatively," said conservative activist Betsy McCaughey.

The former GOP lieutenant governor of New York, who has accused the Obama administration of "sending lies" through its health care information website, dismissed the CBS poll, saying others indicate "public outrage is as high now as the day the law was signed."

But Democratic pollster Mark Mellman said the CBS poll showed the public resents Republicans taking their focus off creating more jobs.

"Americans aren't wild about the new law, but they are not anxious to repeal it and they aren't anxious to play political games by defunding it," he said. "Republicans are risking a lot with this strategy, but they are clearly blinded by extremist ideology."

Yet if there is anything that can be considered post-partisan, it is that everyone appears confused.

A recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation found views on what Congress should do next "all over the map." Sabato said public opinion is "as complicated as the new law" itself.

"Most people like certain aspects of the law but are too unfamiliar with the big picture to have a firm view," he said, predicting that opinion will fluctuate up and down as the law is implemented.

But while the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to issue the final opinion on health care reform, Sabato said politicians wrangling over it now should be careful how they interpret the polls.

"Republicans are wrong if they think the public is opposed to all of this law," he said. "Democrats are wrong if they think the public backs the whole enchilada."

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