The Popularity of the Public Plan
There’s something very frustrating about the way public opinion polling plays into the legislative process. If you talk about the idea of increasing the gas tax, then you hear that even though that’s a good idea it can’t be done because it’s unpopular. But if you talk about health care reform and the inclusion of a strong public plan, suddenly public opinion becomes irrelevant. Ezra Klein pulled this number out of an NBC/WSJ poll:
And not only is the idea of a public option popular in the abstract, the inclusion of a robust public option would save a lot of money and thus allow the congress to minimize its reliance on unpopular measures like tax increases. But suddenly here public opinion becomes irrelevant. You never hear a Blue Dog say “my seat is so vulnerable that I can’t afford not to back a super-popular public plan.” Ben Nelson’s not talking about how if Democrats want to stay viable in red states they need to robustly back a 70-20 issue like the public plan. The WSJ doesn’t run a headline saying “Opposition to Public Option Spells Political Trouble for Republicans.” Public opinion, in other words, can be a reason to eschew sound progressive policy but never a reason to enact it.
23 Responses to “The Popularity of the Public Plan”
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June 19th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
One thing that occurs to me is, increasing the majority party’s margin benefits the leadership greatly, but may lower the marginal leverage of rank-and-file members. So if Ben Nelson believes the Democratic majority in the Senate is safe, why would he want any more Democratic senators?
June 19th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Nelson, Snowe and Collins are the change we need, the change we voted for in 2008.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Perhaps we should take to the streets?
June 19th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Polls demonstrating support for change or reform are disgregarded: the public option, marijuana legalization, and federal-level gay equality all have broad popular backing, but that fact is never considered when legislating around those issues. Polls are only invoked when they show support for the status quo. This is not a big mystery–why shouldn’t sitting congressmen, well-paid lobbyists, and influential media personalities be fine with keeping things the way they are?
June 19th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Perhaps we should take to the streets?
Sounds good. I’ll wear my “Free Mumia Abu Jamal” t-shirt.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
This is easy to figure out if you pay the least bit of attention. Health care, while important, is not “in your face” every day. Gas prices, on the other hand, are. Unlike Matt, most of us do buy gas on a regular basis (most people far more often than I do). So when the govt pumps up the gas tax, it’s immediately visible to the vast majority of citizens in a way that health care problems typically aren’t.
This is all obvious stuff, unless you’re Matt or Ezra. Then it’s really, really hard.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
And you all think I’m evil for refusing to vote for these people any more.
At some point, you have to look at your own part in perpetuating this system and accept momentary pain for long term victory.
Democrats haven’t passed a single law that helps normal people over corporations since LBJ. I look forward to 2012, because there’s no way Obama gets reelected with the unemployment numbers. At least with a Republican in the whitehouse the rest of you will realize that you need to fight.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
It’s not because the policy is progressive, it’s because it’s opposed by wealthy interest groups. That’s when public opinion is irrelevant.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
I think that public opinion on a specific issue matters less than time on people’s television sets hugging your family and sounding reasonable on this or that. Supporting a public plan doesn’t help you do that and opposing one doesn’t make you look like a crazy person because voters don’t know about it.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
The WSJ doesn’t run a headline saying “Opposition to Public Option Spells Political Trouble for Republicans.” Public opinion, in other words, can be a reason to eschew sound progressive policy but never a reason to enact it.
This all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, though — it’s because newspapers don’t run those headlines that popular opinion doesn’t become relevant. If newspapers started running them, then that mere fact would make them more important.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Health care, while important, is not “in your face” every day.
Unless it is.
What that number suggests is that private health insurers are about as popular as Dick Cheney. Of course, members of Congress don’t have to deal with standard private health insurers, and many of them have never dealt with a standard private health insurer in their lives.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
#8 is right, and could be implicit in Matt’s post.
The sequence of events is like this.
1) Congressman gets 2 good ideas from policy wonks – gas tax and public plan.
2) Congressmen checks with Big OIl & Big Pharma – are you guys OK with a Gas tax and a public plan respectively?
3) Big Oil says – “whatever, couldn’t care less”. Big Pharma says – “not OK, in fact we’ll fund your opponent in the next election.”
4) Congressman drops public plan idea without checking opinion polls. He then checks public polls for gas tax idea, finds it unpopular, so drops that as well.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I don’t think the political thinking on this by the relevant actors is that hard to figure out.
Opposing the public option is indeed dangerous for the Republicans, but on the other hand they are probably right to conclude that a successful public option will be enormously beneficial for Obama and the Democratic Party whether or not some Republicans supported it too. So they are gambling on trying to kill it. I actually think that is a bad bet for them in the long run, but I understand their reasoning. Of course, this is not to rule out the possibility that they are also rationalizing themselves into believing a public option is actually a bad idea.
Meanwhile, some marginal Democrats are concluding that making a show of trying to compromise with the Republicans is going to play well with the independents and Republicans in their states or districts whose votes they need for reelection. And they may well be right about that, although I actually think the best-case scenario for them would be to get the benefit of trying to compromise, but then still getting a successful public option that will generally make the Democratic Party more popular in the future.
Of course this theory depends on the notion that their voters would retain a general sense of their bipartisanshipness without remembering and blaming them for unsuccessfully attempting to compromise away the public option. But I don’t think that is a bad bet.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Yep. Once we sign the enabling act, we’ll have given Hitler enough rope to hang himself.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
@12 Ohioan
Wins the thread.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Njorl, it looks to me like you’re the ones making those deals with the devil here.
Go ahead, keep voting for Democrats to fuck you in the ass.
Hell, you probably like their policies. Democrats don’t refuse to help people out of electoral fear or because they like bipartisanship. Thats just the load of BS they use to justify selling out their supports. Folks like you are stupid or corrupt enough to go along with.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
DTM, no. They aren’t. Nobody votes on bipartisanship, and everyone knows that. They want you to think that’s what they are doing because they know it’s better than you view them as weak and craven than what they really are, which is outright corrupt.
June 19th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Ohioan not only wins the thread, he is exactly right. People like Ben Nelson believe they can’t support a public option, not because it loses them votes, but because it loses them money, and wins their challenger money, which they believe will ultimately determine their fate.
It wouldn’t hurt for us to point on the money angle to this more often. Too much of the press fetishizes moderation and bipartisanship and rogues like Nelson while ignoring that it is precisely those like Nelson who are most likely to make their decisions based on how it affects special interest money. Opposing the public plan isn’t reining in excess — it won’t save any money and may in fact make the bill costlier — but it is a good way to keep the insurance industry from gunning for you.
June 19th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Bastards. If only Obama knew…
June 19th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
THE PUBLIC PLAN FOR THE CREATION OF FATHERS DAY!
FATHERS DAY
“As this is written it is nearing the end of Mothers Day. It was a beautiful thought these florists had to propose this day. I propose a Fathers Day. No flowers, no fuss, just let him use the car himself and go where he wants to. But he will never live to see such a contented day.” (Source: Will Rodgers, May 12, 1930)
TRIATHLON: Sunday, is both Fathers Day and the Beginning of Summer, should we guess which will receive the attention? Will had to get it wrong once in awhile, we got Fathers day, and you can be sure there are no flowers, unless its on your grave, no fuss, it is more like no one really cares anyway, and the idea of Father having the car, you have got be kidding. The only time Father gets the car is when its out of gas, and no one Mother, Son, or Daughter is going to reach down deep into their purse, wallets or pockets, because Father will take care of it. But there is some poetic justice in it, after all Father always got the car back with the gas tank in the red zone, from yours truly, so pretty much what goes around comes around. And, just to let you Fathers with just one child know, your not really a full fledged Father yet, you have a (50/50) Fifty-Fifty chance of guessing who did the dirty deeds Mother or the Child, your odds go down with each additional family member, keep the head count down they do not come cheaper by the dozen. So, to all those Fathers out there Happy Fathers Day, check your wallet for cash if the car is not gone, you can bet the gas tank contains fumes. If there are any Fathers out there that want another view on Fathers Day see (WWW.TheGlobeMail.Com), (a) Fathers Day is just a Hallmark holiday, by Roy MacGregor)
TRIATHLON
June 19th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Both of my senators (Cardin,Mikulski) and my rep (van Hollen)are publiclly and vocally in favor of a public option. Van Hollen will probably be one of the most active in preventing the house from signing on to any compromise that leaves out a public option.
The Democrats are looking particularly bad now because the focus is on the finance commitee.
Just because things will get worse under Republicans does not mean there will be a cure-all backlash. If Republicans get in again in 2012, they will screw up the budget even more. In 2017 the Social Security trust fund will need to be repaid the money that was taken from it. Do you really think there is a chance that will happen if the Republicans have had 4 yers to wreck the economy? The idea that we’ll be able to enact healthcare reform on top of that is crazy.
Sometimes, when things get worse, people don’t come to their senses, they become violent. Do you really think that populist violence in the US would push the country to the left?
June 19th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
This is silly. Ezra Klein complains about this, which is true, but the fact that a majority of Americans want a public health care system for all goes unreported by him.
http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/06/08/kaiser-health-tracking-poll/
June 20th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Re: I look forward to 2012, because there’s no way Obama gets reelected with the unemployment numbers.
Um, 1936? By your logic we should have had President Alf Landon by a landslide. Unless Obama does something really stupid that is indeliably his own fault, he will not be blamed for the GOP’s Foobared economy in 2012 any more than Roosevelt was blamed for the Depression in 1936.