“Over the last several months, the American people have spoken, and it’s pretty clear that our Democrat colleagues have not listened.”
House Minority Leader John Boehner from Ohio (you know, the George Hamilton of Congress. I mean, come on, look at that golden boy tan):
said the preceding quote when giving the Republican response to the “Affordable Health Care for American Act” that was proposed by the House on Thursday. As soon as Rep. Boehner said that Democrats have not listened to the American public, it just added yet another example of how out of touch the Republican Party is with Americans. Although, maybe he was referring to the fact that what is included in the bill is an “opt-out” public option, and just not a mandatory one. Somehow, though, I doubt that is where he was going.
A significant majority of the American public supports a public option plan to be included in health care reform. This also was one of the major issues that President Obama ran on last year, and when he won a decisive victory over John McCain last November, the American public spoke, shoot, practically yelled for health care reform that covers the uninsured.
In fact, the public’s support for a public option is the exact reason it went from being reported as “dead” to being a must as part of any health care reform. From a Washington Post – ABC News Poll dated October 20, 2009:
“One poll doesn’t mean much,” you ask? Ok, how about a list of polls done back in June 2009 when the public option was just getting mentioned, before it was considered “dead”:
Most of those polls show more than 60% support for a public option, the one outlier is the more conservative Rasmussen poll. Still not enough? Maybe those polls were done before the public was really informed of what a “public option” actually is? Ok, how about a poll done at the beginning of October by the Daily Kos/Research 2000 that shows a 52% to 39% support for a public option over a bipartisan bill that doesn’t include the public option:
QUESTION: Do you favor or oppose creating a government administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans?
Oh and Rep. Boehner, that poll does include your home state of Ohio. But maybe he is getting his figures about the “American public” from another source. Since he is just a Representative, he only really has to answer to his own district. That is the 8th district in Ohio, a R+14 district that went to McCain 60-38 in 2008. According to a Research 2000/Daily Kos poll done for his constituents, 37% favor the public option compared to 54% who oppose. So maybe he is just basing the opinion of the “American public” on his own constituents, however, he is still ignoring the 37% who support it.
QUESTION: Do you favor or oppose creating a government-administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans?
I think Rep. Boehner must just be really, really confused about who the “American public” actually are.
As far as Kansas goes in this whole debate, I have had difficulty coming up with any polls that show strictly our opinions. FiveThirtyEight.com, a site that I consider pretty reliable in their predictions, has created a map of the US that shows where they believe the public option will be supported and where it will be mostly opposed:
From this map, you can see that Kansas becomes somewhat split. In the highly populated eastern part of the state, five thirty eight predicts that the majority of people would support a public option. However, in the more rural parts, not surprisingly, there is more opposition. Most definitely due to the stronger Republican base in these areas. Most of the people I know support the public option, but that is hardly scientific, especially since I hang around mostly people who think like I do. If an “opt-out” public option is what is passed, I can easily see our fairly red state immediately jumping ship. Especially since some of our legislators think it’s necessary to amend our state constitution to prevent us from having our uninsured covered and the rest of us affordable options. However, while my view is that the closer we get to universal health care, the better, I still believe an “opt-out” public option is a step in the right direction. Sure it will probably take Kansas a little longer to see why it is a good idea, but once the public realizes that it is working in other states, I think we can demand our legislators to opt back in. Or at least attempt it.
Also, opting out of the public option could possibly hurt small businesses around the state’s edges. If someone decided to open a business in Johnson County when Kansas opted out and Missouri didn’t, why would they not consider moving their business to Missouri? This logic could also help put pressure on our legislators to stay in or opt back in. At least, I think so…
There are several reasons why opting out of the public option would be bad for Kansas. Let’s just hope that it doesn’t take too long for us to opt back in.
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