Washington Post/ABC poll as biased for liberals as NY Times poll

The latest Washington Post/ABC poll is as biased for liberals and Democrats as the recent New York Times/NBC poll. The NYT poll’s bias has received a lot of attention; the Post’s poll’s biases aren’t being discussed.

Both polls found substantial support for changing the nation’s health insurance markets even though most of the respondents to the polls are pretty satisfied with their insurance and health care experiences.

However, as reported below, the Post/ABC poll shows that 78% to 84% of those polled earlier this month are very worried that the health legislation going through Congress would reduce their health insurance coverage, reduce the quality of their care and limit their choices of doctors or treatments. They fear that the legislation would increase the cost of their care and that it would sharply increase the federal budget deficit.

Because politicians and pundits focus on the stories that the sponsoring newspapers and TV networks publish about their polls, not on the validity of the polls, they make bad political and policy decisions and judgments.

Here’s what’s wrong with the Post/ABC poll:

51% of respondents make less than $50,000 in total household income from all sources. This means that the fact that 60% of respondents approve of higher taxes to cover universal health insurance is distorted by respondents who pay no income taxes. People with household incomes under $50,000 pay little or no income taxes.

52% of respondents are Democrats or lean Democrat. Only 38% are Republican or lean Republican. And only 10% of the 37% who call themselves independent claim they don’t lean one way or another, which is hard to believe. This means that many of the 76% of respondents who call themselves moderate or conservative don’t vote that way. Only 22% called themselves liberals, but they vote liberal and their responses to the poll are pretty liberal.

You can say that because Obama got some 53% of the votes last year, the poll reflects the country. But McCain got 47% of the vote, not 38%, which means the poll isn’t representative of the country. And obviously, the 40% of respondents who call themselves “moderates” are more moderate liberals than moderate conservatives.

Having laid out these caveats about the Post/ABC poll, here are some of its findings on health insurance and health care reforms:

53% approve the way Obama is handling health care; 39% disapprove.
In April, 57% approved and 29% disapproved. Thus, opinion is moving against Obama, but not very much.

48% approve and 48% disapprove Obama’s handling of budget deficits, compared with 51% to 43% in the April survey.

47% think the country’s going in the right direction; 50% in the wrong direction. In April it was 50% to 48%. Again, Obama’s losing a little ground.

55% think Obama will do a better job handling health care; 27% Republicans; 11% neither.

54% favor smaller government with fewer services, 41% larger government with more services. But they didn’t vote that way.

84% of respondents have some form of health insurance, 16% don’t.

43% of all respondents are satisfied with the overall health care system in this country; 45% of those covered with health insurance are satisfied; 57% of all respondents and 54% of covered respondents are dissatisfied.

83% of all respondents are satisfied with the quality of health care; 88% of insured respondents are.

55% of all respondents are satisfied with health care costs that are and are not covered by insurance; 61% of the insured are satisfied.

Of the insured, 81% are satisfied with their coverage; 42% are very satisfied and 39% are somewhat satisfied. This is where insurers are vulnerable.

85% of all respondents are very concerned about their and their family’s health care costs in the future; 59% are very concerned and only 11% are not too concerned. This is Obama’s big talking point even though there is little chance politicians can control health care costs for very long. Price controls and rationing won’t work.

When asked how concerned they are about efforts to reform health care [insurance]:

81% are concerned that the quality of health care would be reduced;
82% are concerned that their health insurance coverage would be reduced;
84% are concerned that reforms would increase their health care costs;
78% are concerned that proposed reforms would increase bureaucracy in health care;
79% are concerned that reforms would limit their choices of doctors or treatments;  and,
84% are concerned that reforms would sharply increase the federal deficit.

Clearly, the Democrats don’t want to give Republicans to exploit these concerns, and Republicans want time to educate the public about the risks of enacting Obama’s proposed reforms, whatever they turn out to be.

38% of all respondents think health reforms are possible without changes in their coverage while 58% think changes would be required.

49% support a law that would require that all Americans either buy insurance through their employers or buy it on their own; 47% oppose.

62% support and 34% oppose a rule that requires employers to either offer health insurance to their employees or pay money into a government health insurance fund.

44% support and 52% oppose a rule that working Americans who don’t get health insurance through work or on their own would have to pay money into a government health insurance fund.

70% support and 28% oppose a tax credit or other aid to help low-income Americans pay for health insurance. (Remember, 51% of the respondents pay little or no income taxes and wouldn’t be affected by higher taxes needed to pay for this.)

68% support and 27% oppose a rule that insurance companies sell coverage to people regardless of pre-existing conditions.

What would the response have been if the question had been, Do you support requiring insurance companies to sell insurance for a $1,000 monthly payment to a patient with a $1 million illness who had not bought insurance while healthy if that insurance were required to provide coverage upon the payment of that $1,000 premium payment? In other words, do you think an insurer should be required to give a $1 million gift of coverage to someone who had not bought health insurance and helped cover other people’s illnesses?

And the followup question would be, If requiring insurers to cover pre-existing illnesses of people who have never bought health insurance would increase your monthly premium by $100 per month, would you support or oppose that rule?

62% support and 33% oppose having the government create a new health insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

Of the supporters of such a plan, 21% would want it to be run by the government and 41%by an independent organization. Not a lot of trust in government there.

Of the supporters of a government plan, 37% still would support it if it meant putting private insurers out of business while 58% would oppose the plan.

24% support taxing health benefits people got through their employer if those benefits cost more than $17,000 a year; 70% oppose the tax.

60% would support and 37% would oppose a tax on those making more than $250,000 a year to help pay for health care reform. This would affect few of the respondents’ tax bills. This response again shows that some 60% of the respondents are liberals and only 37% are fiscal conservatives.

57% support and 42% oppose a law limiting the amount of money they could get if they win a lawsuit after being injured by bad medical care.

16% think that if the health care systems [there is no system] is changed, the quality of their health care would get better; 31% say worse; 50% say it would be the same.

58% of all respondents think government reform of the health care system [insurance markets] is necessary and 39% think it would do more harm than good.  Considering how biased toward the liberals and Democrats the respondents are, that’s a remarkably high percentage who think reforms would do more harm than good.

If Republicans can stall a vote on health insurance market reforms and get the word out about how ObamaCare would increase the budget deficit and taxes and reduce the quality of care and access to care, health insurance reform legislation currently being written in Congress wouldn’t pass.

But opponents of ObamaCare remain reluctant to mount a strong attack on it.

I could have pretended to write an objective story about the Washington Post and NYT polls just as their reporters did. But my biases against ObamaCare are fully disclosed while their support of it is not fully disclosed. Their biases are just obvious.

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