Update: w/ Poll Link - New Poll: Health Care Approval Down To 36%

Update: Here's the link to Quinnipiac.

As the Senate prepares to vote on health care reform, American voters "mostly disapprove" of the plan 53 - 36 percent and disapprove 56 - 38 percent of President Barack Obama's handling of the health care issue, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Voters also oppose 72 - 23 percent using any public money in the health care overhaul to pay for abortions, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

American voters also disapprove 51 - 44 percent of President Obama's handling of the economy and disapprove 56 - 37 percent of the way he is creating jobs.

Why have a vote before Christmas? After that, it's recess time, baby. Obamacare wouldn't have gotten this far if legislators had to  come home at night.

Our overseers in Washington have to come home now. Come on out and play Senators and Representatives - where we live for a change, not in DC. The American people may want to have a word with you before you go back. Think of this sort of as getting schooled. You don't want to risk getting expelled, I assume.

A new poll released Tuesday shows American voters "mostly disapprove" of the health care reform plan that the Senate is prepared to vote on, by a 53 percent to 36 percent margin.

Fifty-six percent of voters disapprove of President Obama's handling of the health care issue, compared to 38 percent ho approve, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted Dec. 15-20.

Comments

[Peg C.]

Dan, is there a link to this poll? I can't find one.

[Charlotte]

Ho Ho Ho America! Or, should I say: Landreiu, Lieberman and Nelson. (whores all) JERKS.

Yes, come on out and play, Senators! Because GUARANTEED next Christmas those of you who voted for this unconstitutional bill if up for re-election will be toast. WE ARE COMING FOR YOUR JOBS!!! Hope you have some sort of other job lined up, because you will NEVER be sitting Senators AGAIN. EVER.

OWN IT DEMS!! OWN IT!!

Get a clue: WE DON'T WANT THIS BILL!!!

[Peg C.]

OK, found article if not the poll, thx.

[Dan Riehl]

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1408

[Lala]

Mayor Bloomberg, Gov. Patterson, NY don't like it at all.

[Uh, Clem]

Like somebody said over on another blog...

America is at an akward stage:
Too late to work within the system,
Too soon to start shooting the bastards

[CatoRenasci]

Every last one of them should be met at the airport, or the stations, and at their homes, with crowds carry hanging effigies, with tar and feathers, and signs making the depth and heat of their anger known.

[JoeCitizen]

You missed this part of the poll Dan,

"While voters oppose the health care plan, they back two options cut from the Senate bill, supporting 56 - 38 percent giving people the option of coverage by a government health insurance plan and backing 64 - 30 percent allowing younger people to buy into Medicare."

Robust majority support for public option and Medicare buy-in.

That is a consistent finding in all polls I have seen. Whats it all mean?

Pretty obvious - go look at the CNN poll released yesterday - where they broke down WHY people are opposed to Obamacare.

Some are opposed from the right, but some from the left. They found 55% supporting Obamacare OR SOMETHING TO THE LEFT OF IT.

The opposition from people like you, from the right is the MINORITY opinion in this country.

[Dan Riehl]

Joe - Never cite a CNN poll here and expect to be taken seriously. The Q poll says what it says, 56% oppose. Period. And in Reid's illegitimate attempt to change Senate rules impacting potential changes and this bill is a loser. Only a fool would think reconcilliation will produce a better bill.

[Dan Riehl]

Besides that, asking people about a gov option and medicare buy in is one thing. Ask them about what the actual ramifications and costs will be and a majority would oppose. No sleight of hand BS on this one. Too many people are watching. They will make the facts known.

[Good Lt.]

>"While voters oppose the health care plan, they back two options cut from the Senate bill, supporting 56 - 38 percent giving people the option of coverage by a government health insurance plan and backing 64 - 30 percent allowing younger people to buy into Medicare." Robust majority support for public option and Medicare buy-in.

And do they give the trade-off question with that question?

They're asking "do you want free stuff?" without asking "would you still want it if your taxes went through the roof and you earned 25% less than you do now?"

Kind of important qualifier, and the numbers flip the other way around when that is included in any poll where they're asked for a trade-off. Because, after all, there WILL BE a trade-off. There is not such things as "free" government health care.

Nice try, though. Keep pretending everyone is "clamoring" for socialism the way you are.

[Allen G]

Joe- The problem is with those words "options" and "allowing." The original Medicare bill was supposed to "allow" people to enroll with Medicare (meaning private options would still be available)- now, try finding an individual health insurance policy for someone 65 or over that isn't Medicare, Medicare Advantage, or a supplement. They're not there.

I don't have a link at the moment (care to dig one up, Dan? I know I've seen them), but when the wording is changed to signify the reality- "Government-run" instead of "public option," for instance, "Requiring" or other such words (which is what will happen sooner than you think) oppinion plummets.

Yes, people are all for "choices," but there aren't actually (beyond the status quo) currently on the table.

[Lala]

It's not that health insurance for someone over 65 isn't there, it's that it is not permitted if you are collecting social security. If you want to opt out of Medicare you must opt out of social security too.

[Lummox JR]

With support for the bill dropping so precipitously over the last couple of weeks, I'm really surprised Reid and co. pushed through with it. It seems to me like the smart move for them would be to quietly let it die and then clamor to their base that it's all the Republicans' fault. At this point it'd even be a boon to Obama to save face with a veto, using the holiday as a time to "reflect" on the bill and "conclude" that it isn't what he wanted after all. Doing that would distance him from the wildly unpopular Congress and Senate, and it would cut the name "Obamacare" away from this legislative train wreck. He may be in too deep now to back down, but a cleverer politician would find a way.

[Pasadena Phil]

Or to put it another way, 53-64% of Americans are now members of those Aryan militias Senator Whitehouse seems to believe are the only reason anyone would oppose Obamacare and the fascist dictatorship that it creates. Since our government can now be accurately be described as corrupt and lawless, what laws are we now bound to? McCain's insane obsession with commity in the Senate while the democracy is demolished are not a good example for the rest of us to follow.

[Anon]

Once the bill is passed you will see the poll numbers go up again becaue they will ask questions like "Do you support the HCR legislation that extends coverage to 30 million low income Americans?" Everyone will say yes.

The bill won't affect anything for at least a couple of years...another reason to fear an Obama second term...and until the middle class sees the results..which is going to be more paperwork, higher premiums and worse coverage...you're going to see the same soft support as before.

The only bonus in this debacle is further proof of how absolutely stupid the Democrats are, since they could and should have done all of this behind closed doors instead of letting the country see exactly now corrupt and amoral the U.S. Congress has become, they exhausted a ton of political capital for basically nothing.

[templar knight]

Anon, I truly believe the jig is up. There will be no one to buy the 2.3 trillion dollars worth of treasuries coming up for auction in the next few weeks, and the monetization of all that debt will destroy our economy. Of course, you can be sure the boss in the WH will not let this crisis go to waste. I'm telling you that 2010 might very well be the worst year in our country since the Civil War. I'm warning you again to get ready the best way you can. Then you will be prepared for whatever comes along. And get the hell out of the big cities and their suburbs. Now!

If I'm wrong, I will gladly eat all the crow you can force feed me. I hope and pray I am, I fear I'm not.

[JustOneMan]

The Blood Begins!! The election is still a year away the Dumbs lost a seat!!

Rep. Parker Griffith switches to GOP

[Anon]

It's possible that is for sure.

I am still totally clueless as to why the stock market has gone up, the only thing I can attribute it to is the "insiders" and the banks and the fed are rigging the system in order to prevent the full force of the derivatives debacle from being felt in the hopes that sooner or later things will really stabilize. ALL of that bad paper that caused the hysteria of the US financial system going broke is STILL out there on the books, the only way to wipe it out is for the feds to buy it at hugely inflated prices, which will mean a multi trillion hit to the taxpayer yet again.

I think we're going to see the market drop again in a few months, maybe January or so...I still have money in the market because I can't really decide if the bottom is going to fall out NOW or in 10 or 15 years.

The issue w/the T-bills is that if the Chinese don't buy them then the dollar will fall and they lose billions if not trillions. However, the Chinese don't necessarily "need" that money, they could weather the storm better than we can because their people are not used to the same standard of living and they have enough control over the economy [I think?] to prevent a full scale meltdown. Hey, if I was a Chinese financial advisor I would advise them to slowly stop buying over about 7 or 8 years and begin shifting from a manufacturing for Wal-mart economy to a manufacturing for our own citizens economy.

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns though, ya know, all this blabbering about HCR when the economy stands on the brink of disaster. Pathetic, and that goes for the GOP as well.

As an side, the real way to gauge support for HCR is to ask people how much they are willing to pay--either in the form of taxes or higher premiums--to extend healthcare to the poor. This would give a realistic measure of how strong and deep support is because as we all know, somebody is eventually going to foot the bill for this monstrousity, and it ain't going to be Warren Buffet.

[rrpjr]

What we're seeing is political corruption and abuse spinning at such an increasingly centrifugal speed as to make predictions based on any model of the past impossible. The corruption and abuse have become psychotic and phenomenal; there is no way to tell what constituent elements of the body politic will break away and change and chemically re-form. It really is a new day.

[templar knight]

Anon, the stock market is going up because of all the liquidity that has been poured into the market, mostly through the monetization of the national debt. The money has to go somewhere, and the zero interest rates paid for savings means it won't go there.

To show you how low the dollar has sunk, the carry trade is now being done mostly in dollars. When interest rates have to be raised to a level needed to sell treasuries, the national debt will overwhelm us. When kept low to stimulate an already slow economy, then boom....inflation. In a major way. It's now a Hobson's choice. We lose either way.

Frankly, I have some money invested in the stock market, mainly in commodoties. I have some natural gas and oil holdings, and I have some precious metals and cash handy. More cash than I have ever had. I don't know what else to do.

[mark l.]

"Anon, the stock market is going up because of all the liquidity that has been poured into the market, mostly through the monetization of the national debt. The money has to go somewhere, and the zero interest rates paid for savings means it won't go there."

worth checking the dow under carter/reagan...

it was the inflation, then unemployment combo, but from 79 to 83 the dow was up about 50%. we are just going with the unemployment first, inflation later, combo.

[mark l.]

as for the 36%...

libs would have gone thru their entire sock drawer, along with 20 lbs of crisco, if bush had invaded iraq with this support.

every congress critter is up for pass/fail in 2010. the generics are SOLID for the gop. no independent in their right mind is going to voice any support for the gop, but they will still be breaking hard for conservatives in 2010. looking at the rasmussen strong approval/dispapproval, keeping in mind that off year elections are about 40% of total turnout for the electorate, we are looking at a 55-45%, minimum, breakout for the gop, as the default protest vote...

435 seats, 55%=239 seats.

dems hold 257 seats, currently, and are poised to lose 61 seats. chalk in the loss of a filibuster proof senate(which will be irrelevant after the loss of the house), the usurping of nancy, and the massive rejection of reid-

we have wormsign the likes of which god has never seen.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wormsign

[bandit]

America is at an akward stage:
Too late to work within the system,
Too soon to start shooting the bastards

Why is it too early?