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In June, an NBC/WSJ poll asked this question [pdf, question 32]:
“In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance––extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?
And the people spoke:
41% Extremely important, 35% Quite important, 12% Not that important, 8% Not at all important and 4% Not sure.
Thus, 76% of people in America supporting a public health insurance option.
In late July, the same poll asked a different question [pdf, question 28]:
“Would you favor or oppose creating a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would compete directly with private health insurance companies?”
And, unsurprisingly, they got a different answer:
46% Support, 44% oppose, 10% not sure.
Now, in August, they’ve asked the same question as July, and support has slipped for their skewed question three percentage points, within the margin of error. This is now being touted as only 43% in favor of a public health insurance option.
These polls are not comparable. The first poll (June) accurately framed the question – should people be able to choose a public health insurance option. The second poll (July and August) pushed them towards an answer by leaving out the essential question of choice and asking a yes or no question.
Respected pollster Celinda Lake confirms this point:
Poll after poll shows that large majorities of Americans support reform that offers a choice of a public health insurance plan or private insurance. In fact Americans strongly support having that choice rather than access to only private insurance. Choice is a key value.
Jeff Liszt, Partner in Anzalone Liszt Research, adds:
National polling has consistently shown strong support for a public health insurance option that provides choice and competition for Americans. As with any complicated issue, questions about healthcare reform are sensitive to the wording of the question. The use of different language (NBC no longer tests whether people should be given the choice of a public plan) helps explain why NBC’s current results look so different from their earlier polling which showed 76% support for the public option, and so different from recent national polling by CBS/NYT and Quinnipiac, both of which show over 65% support for a public health insurance option.
Richard Kirsch, our National Campaign Director, continues:
One can only wonder why the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll removed the concept of choice of a public option after 76% of Americans say they want that choice. By dropping what the President proposes and what the public strongly supports – giving people a choice – from their list of questions, the NBC/Wall Street Journal pollsters misrepresent reform and raise questions about their own agenda.
Polls in June and July showed overwhelming support for a public option, 72% and 69% respectively when folks were asked if they wanted the option of choosing a public plan.
Claims that these polls show a change in support for a public health insurance option are wrong. The only thing that’s changed is the way these media firms asked their questions.
Update:
Via Media Matters, Chuck Todd apparently thinks accurate describing health reform as a choice is "biased:"
On Hardball earlier this evening, NBC’s Chuck Todd claimed that they changed the wording because the word "choice" "biased" the question.
Todd didn’t explain what is "biased" about describing a plan that offers people a choice between a public plan and private insurance as offering a choice between a public plan and private insurance.
Aside from the absurdity of describing the original question as "biased," it is important to note that the first question frames the topic of a public plan in terms of its effect on consumers — it indicates that they would have a choice between a public plan and private insurance. The new wording frames it in terms of the plan’s effect on private insurance companies by emphasizing that they would face competition. The new wording is only passingly about consumers.
It should come as no surprise that a poll question that adopts the insurance companies’ point of view yields results less favorable for a public plan than one that focuses on the impact on consumers.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
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6 Comments
March on Washington for healthcare reform on Sept. 13th. Pass it along. The people united cannot be defeated.
Jason, Thanks for pointing this out. The two questions measure different things. Of course, Chuck Todd’s notion about bias is stupid because it frames the issue as if it’s possible to structure questions in a survey to avoid bias. It’s not. All survey questions are dependent on their framing. And the answers one gets depend on the question you ask. Chuck and NBC just didn’t want to report a favorable result for the public option, so to avoid doing that again, they just banished the question. Too bad they didn’t ask both questions and track them over time, it would have been interesting to see if 76% support for a choice between public and private plans persisted in the face of only 43% support for public/private competition.
Thanks for this, Jason.
Chuck Todd is an ass. Not exactly a news flash, of course. But, really, there’s no virtue in being so consistent in one’s ignorance/stupidity/narcissism.
Villagers…Feh!
FunnyWheelieDiva
respected? i’d sorta like to know by whom, so i know who’s judgement to mock.
here are a few bits from pnhp’s post Americans Support Single payer. Why Doesn’t Celinda Lake? with kip sullivan’s analysis, An analysis of Celinda Lake’s slide show, “How to talk to voters about health care”
Hi selise, I think the answer to your question is that Celinda Lake is respected by HCAN and also by other customers of her firm who appreciate her ability to construct surveys in such a way that they can results supporting whatever axe it is that want to grind.
Jason, the more I think about this, the happier I am that you pointed out the problem. It is such an egregious example of NBC’s bias and incompetence in trying to measure opinion that it really needs the kind of alert you delivered. Thank you again.
The fact that NBC changed its measuring instrument (its question) for measuring support for a public option from June to July and now suggests in commentary that there’s been a sharp falling off of support for it, is just outrageous. It’s pure social science malpractice. Chuck Todd ought to be fired.