Polls show dim support for health care bill

Polls show Americans aren’t buying into the health care reform bill being crafted by Democrats as doubts surfaced Wednesday on Capitol Hill over the “public option” deal that President Obama said cleared the way for passage of his top agenda item.

Democrats are plowing ahead with hopes of passing the bill by Christmas and to change the public’s attitude. They said inaction would be far worse, but voters are unconvinced.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found that 52 percent of voters oppose the health care reform bill that Congress is considering, while 38 percent support it. The findings, similar to those of other polls, reflect the largest margin so far.

“It’s a good thing for those pushing the health care overhaul in Congress that the American people don’t get a vote,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

The Quinnipiac poll also found sliding support for the government-run public option, though with 56 percent in favor, it’s still a clear majority.

The public insurance plan’s future in the Senate is in doubt. Several liberal and moderate Democrats negotiating a compromise said they did not sign on to a “broad agreement” to eliminate the public option and enact alternatives, as Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Tuesday night.

“There was no compromise,” said Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat. “There were a lot of ideas where there was consensus that we needed more information to move forward.”

The deal was to send a series of ideas to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for an analysis of its cost and impact, Ms. Lincoln said.

The outlines of a proposal to remove the public insurance plan include an expansion of the Medicare program to allow people ages 55 to 64 to “buy in”; authorizing the Office of Personnel Management - which runs the federal employees’ health care program - to set up an insurance program; an expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage to children from low-income families; and “triggering” a government-run insurance plan if insurance criteria involving price and competition aren’t met.

Until the ideas are scored by the CBO, “we really don’t even know what’s in [the deal],” said Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat and one of the moderates in the negotiating room.

Ms. Landrieu and Ms. Lincoln are skeptical of the public insurance plan and were among the last senators to agree to allow formal debate on the legislation to begin. Ms. Lincoln is in a tough re-election fight in a state where the public option hasn’t been popular in recent polls.

But David Kendall, senior fellow for health policy at Third Way, a progressive think tank, predicted that the poll numbers would rebound. He said poll numbers have fallen because Republicans have been attacking the bill while Democrats have focused on the writing the details.

“Once people see that there is something in it for them, that it’s not just a debate about an abstract public plan which nobody understands; that will be the moment,” he said.

Mr. Obama came out in support of what he called a “creative new framework.”

“I support this effort, especially since it’s aimed at increasing choice and competition and lowering cost. So I want to thank all of you for sticking with it, for all those late nights, all the long weekends that you guys have put in,” Mr. Obama said at an event on community health centers that was attended by a handful of lawmakers. “With so much at stake, this is well worth all of our efforts.”

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