Back in February, I pointed out that polls indicated that 64% of Americans supported a Medicare-for-All single payer plan, and 56% to 68% supported a public option. Obviously, this has not changed.
First, this once again confirms the fact that most Americans (75%) want the government to regulate the health insurance industry to a greater extent (or even abolish it altogether). The remaining 25% basically correspond to the birther/Tea Partiers.
Second, this really puts into doubt whether the GOP could realistically repeal the healthcare bill, as their “Pledge” promises.
So, this presents the GOP with a dilemma: they can either go against the majority of Americans and repeal the bill (or repeal and replace it with a free-market-based version), or they can satisfy their base and repeal it. The former route would seemingly encounter widespread opposition; the latter would cost them their base.
Hence the admins scorn for the progressives who mobilized the resources to get Obama elected?
If we’d wanted a moderate Republican president, we should have nominated Ben Nelson or Joe Leibermann.
The banks have drowned Obama in campaign cash, and in his haze he has forgotten to show the token support for progressives expected of him. The only way to make them come to their senses is to only vote for real progressives. If they want to continue on their current course, let them take a hit this year.
The main link in your OP doesn’t work, and your link to the “Pledge” is a link to ThinkProgress.
At any rate, no one seriously believes the Republicans can repeal the bill. It’s easy for them to pledge to “try” to repeal the bill, appealing to their base, knowing full well they won’t be able to.
Thanks for that link. The problem is that the Fox poll is the only one listed on the page that actually asked people whether they want more reform, and not just whether they approve or disapprove of the bill–and it does so ambiguously:
The dichotomy is not “too far / not far enough,” but “not far enough / oppose law as it stands,” which involves 2 opinions are not mutually exclusive (as evidenced by the fact that 2% said “yes” to both).
Check out the polls I cited in the earlier thread. Some of those polls did delineate the “too far / just right / not far enough” categories of people, and consistently found that a majority wanted more reform and more government intervention, whether that was in the form of a public option or a single payer system.
Given how animated their base is, what will happen when they fail to deliver on that promise? Will they nominate even more extremist candidates in future primaries (if that’s even possible)? Will they give up? Will they resort to what Sharron Angle referred to as “Second Amendment remedies” (i.e., domestic terrorism)?
That’s easy to get around by just adding 2% to the 36% to get 38% who think the law didn’t go far enough. And that is still consistent with the cite you gave in this thread which said about 40%.
Those are not very good polls. They ask if people want to require employers to provide health insurance. Wow, 75% of people want that. Well, who wouldn’t, since they don’t say what the consequences will be. They might as well be asking if people want their employers to give them a car or a pony.
How about asking if they want employers to provide health insurance if it means they will take a 10% cut in pay (or something along those lines)?
A few nut cases probably will. The GOP has been promising to repeal Roe v Wade ever since that ruling was made. They had 4 years of control of the WH and Congress just recently, and what happened? Pro-lifers are every bit as “animated” as the anti-Obamacare folks are.
They discovered that Roe v. Wade was a Supreme Court decision and repealing it required a 2/3rds majority of both houses, plus a 3/4ths majority of state legislatures.
Or five sufficiently committed justices and a new case.
Sure, but at the same time, the Supreme Court had the majority of its members appointed by Republicans, too. To the extent that the Supreme Court is affiliated with political parties at all, the Republicans controlled all three branches of government.
They turned them on with Fox Gnus and crazy rhetoric . Now they can’t turn them off. They can not dial down the craziness or they risk losing them. The Repubs have created a monster that could eat them.