Resurgent Republic

MEMORANDUM

TO:           Interested Parties

FROM:     Gary Andres and Whit Ayres

DATE:       October 21, 2009

RE:            Polling on the Public Plan

Earlier this week, The Washington Post ran a story with a headline aimed at bolstering the sagging fortunes of the so-called “public option.”
 
“Public Option Gains Support: Clear Majority Now Backs Plan,” according to the headline writers.  We say: “Doubtful."
 
Resurgent Republic Advisory Board Member Ed Goeas of The Tarrance Group writes this insightful critique of some sampling and other methodological issues associated with the Post survey. Ed also raises the issue of question wording, which we believe deserves an even more thorough discussion.
 
Polling on health care reform in general and the public option specifically is challenging due to low levels of citizen information about the various proposals. As a result, question wording and the type of information introduced in preambles to questions has a major impact on results.
 
The influence of question wording in surveys about the public option has generated a substantial amount of debate among professional pollsters and survey researchers this year. Whit Ayers wrote this response to a Mark Mellman piece in the Hill earlier this year. Mellman argued in his article that the public was now squarely behind the public plan option.
 
In late August, ABC News polling director Gary Langer wrote this piece highlighting why different question wording and follow-ups produce results all over the map.
 
Underscoring this point, Langer explains:

Public opinion on health care reform long has been highly malleable – as we reported back in June, it’s an issue on which pushback works. Given that reality, the variability of polling data this summer and the lack of specifics in reform itself, “settled” is about the last thing I’d call public opinion on this issue.
While we found 62 percent in favor of a public option in June, that dived to 37 percent if it would put many private insurers out of business because they couldn’t compete, as critics charge.

Langer compares eight polls, each of which asks the question in a slightly different way and finds different levels of “support” for the public option.

Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com finds more question wording impact in Kaiser surveys.

“Malleable" is also the word the analysts at the Kaiser Family Foundation chose to describe views on the public option as measured by a series of questions on their July tracking poll. After finding 59% in favor of "creating a government-administered public health insurance option similar to Medicare to compete with private health insurance plans," the Kaiser pollsters followed up with "arguments commonly heard in the debate" and asked respondents if they would "still favor" or "still oppose" the plan as described. They found that one-sided arguments pro and con could push support for such a plan as low as 35% or as high as 72%.

Bottom line: When Americans are asked a one-sided question about whether they support a public option that competes with private insurance, it’s not surprising a majority says “yes.” It’s just another “choice,” “more competition,” and it’s perceived as a way to make health care more affordable. Why wouldn’t a proposal like that generate wide support? Just like “world peace” or “ending poverty.”

Citizens need more information to render meaningful opinions.  That’s why in our Resurgent Republic Health Care poll we provided voters real world arguments about proposals – the up sides and the down sides – before asking for a response.  One example is to provide realistic costs and benefits.  Asking the questions this way yields conclusions different and richer than does the narrow and one-side methodology employed by the Post.  We have no doubt that public attitudes about a public health insurance plan could change. But that all depends on the information presented. As is evidenced from the three questions in the Resurgent Republic health care poll, providing voters with more background and arguments produces mixed results for the public plan option.