Poll: People Hate the Mandate - FireDogLake

Poll: People Hate the Mandate
By: Jane Hamsher Friday December 18, 2009 8:59 am

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New poll by Research 2000 for DFA and the PCCC shows that people hate the mandate:

Would you favor or oppose requiring all Americans to buy health insurance — the so-called mandate — even if they find insurance too expensive or do not want it

FAVOR - 38%

OPPOSE - 51%

NOT SURE - 11%

I’d also note that the wording of the question is the most charitable rendering the issue is ever likely to get.

When it appears in the ads of a Republican challenger who notes that the IRS will act as Aetna’s collection agency, I bet those numbers get dramatically worse.

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Link: http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/18/poll-people-hate-the-mandate/

Political Suicide, no???

:shrug:

:dem:

-Laelth

but they do it. I don't know of anyone getting voted out of office way back when they made car insurance mandatory. That's because it was "sold" as something that was the fault of deadbeats that didn't carry insurance.

due to gouging and price collusion. :hi:

You can't, however, choose not to have a body.

I have full coverage for several hundred thousand dollars for around $800 a year. If I wanted to drop down to just liability that I'm mandated by law to have the cost would go down to less than $300. Mandatory auto insurance "works" because it's inexpensive to cover a large number of people for the statistically small chance they will be in serious accidents costing thousands of dollars. I know it's a lot more expensive for young males and other high risk drivers but remember that the insurance is tied to an activity - driving- that many people want or need to do.

And I'm more that a little uncomfortable comparing people's lives and longevity with a fucking car.

That's how we got into this predicament in the first place. Treating people's lives as a commodity.

:shrug:

The real issue is mandating that anyone should be required to buy a product from a private company. That's corporate welfare, and
it's wrong.

BEFORE it was mandatory to gift ins. co's with billions each year that is transferred to them from US, REMEMBER: if you had
insurance and got hit by an uninsured driver, YOUR policy would cover your damages. One of the bogus arguments made for why
it should be illegal to drive without having paid off an ins. co. is that whenever everybody got liability insurance, RATES
would GO down. HAVE they? NO. They've gone uP.

When reasonable, affordable quality health care IS provided to ALL Americans (rich or poor, young or old, healthy or sick) that also never have to wake up in the prime of their lives to a new reality nightmare (that will affect all those around them) of filing personal bankruptcy or having foreclosure actions filed against their homes/property for non-payment of massive hospital/medical bills, then you'll know you are on the right track of REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM & CHANGE. My Canadian friends continue to remind me each time that Canadians wake up every day knowing (in the back of their mind) that they have great medical coverage & care which also includes their love ones like their children or aging parents. Does anybody believe that ' state of mind, care & assurance ' is worth fighting for? Does anybody really believe that the current HCR they are trying to ram through will produce the SAME peace of mind for ALL? Nowhere near it.

Kind of hard for us to live without a body. No one gets any choice here.

I've lived in more than one state where it is legal to declare yourself "self-insured".

All you basically had to do was show you were financially able to cover any damages up to the level of the minimum insurance requirement. In some states you have to deposit those funds with the State (or post a surety bond), but they will pay you interest.

So, even in some "mandatory" states, it isn't really mandatory.

Why are they so willing to blow up the Party over an insurance company bailout? :wtf:

The industry better get more talking heads out there to repeat the "free rider", "gaming the system", and "healthy young people buying flat screen TVs and cell phones instead of insurance" memes. I guess too many Americans are dealing with expensive insurance themselves or know uninsured people who truly cannot afford it and realize that making them buy it isn't going to put money in their pockets.

That's what the insurance costs are likely to be and more..

I know you didn't make that argument but it's a damn stupid one.

Bullshit like "they can afford cell phones and fancy gadgets but not insurance". As you say, you don't buy those things every month and health insurance - between the premiums and out of pockets - is a helluva lot more expensive than a one time purchase of a gadget.

Constituents don't want it.

Under single payer, everyone is automatically covered by the fact of their existence. And our pooled resources pay for actual care rendered, and not billions wasted by paying gatekeepers to deny care.

Money motivates virtually everyone in the US anymore.

big pharma and the health insurance companies are integral to our economy and therefore afraid to tinker with them too much. (To which I say, "Bah, Humbug!")

what more evidence do they need? don't make people buy bad insurance!

Obviously, the correct action, then, is kill the public option and pass a mandate! Genius! Is this still part of the chess game?

a mandate. That simple.

At least it would not put the burden on individuals. And for the unemployed, self-employed or small businesses there should be rewards (tax credit) not punishments if they get insurance. Probably wouldn't get 94%, but it would be a big improvement.

Anyway none of this solves the big problems which are 1) greedy insurance companies, 2) greedy Pharma and Medical device companies, 3) greedy Hospitals (who strongly lobbied against the Medicare expansion), and 4) greedy physicians (esp Specialists) (Physicians' lobby strongly lobbied against Medicare expansion.)

what a pathetic tool he really is. :grr: