The New Health Dialogue

Friday, the Kaiser Family Foundation released the latest results of the monthly Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. Public opinion is holding fairly steady from last month's poll, starting a gradual rebound after support for reform dipped during the raucous August congressional recess.

A majority of respondents (55 percent) believe it is more important than ever to tackle health reform right now. By party, that's 73 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Independents, but only 30 percent of Republicans. A majority of Republicans believe they would be worse off if health reform passes, while only 29 percent of Independents and only seven percent of Democrats believe health reform would hurt them. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation's Mollyann Brodie, 8 out of 10 Americans are in favor of eliminating insurance denials based on pre-existing conditions, making it the most popular of all the reform provisions currently under consideration. The poll also found a majority of Americans are confused about the timetable of reform, thinking insurance market reforms and help for the uninsured will occur immediately after the bill is passed -- in reality, changes will be phased in over the course of several years.

Public opinion polling data has abounded in the health care debate -- some of it enlightening, and some of it downright confusing. Together with the Alliance for Health Reform, the Kaiser Family Foundation put together a panel of experts to shed some light on health care polling numbers at the event "Public Opinion on Health Reform: What Do the Polls Mean?"

Karlyn Bowman, from the American Enterprise Institute, warned that politicians shouldn't rely on polls to make policy. When it comes to policy, especially policy that is as complicated as health care policy -- the average person usually doesn't have a complete enough understanding to make a decision about whether or not the policy is a good one.

Mark Blumenthal, of Pollster.com explained that language and phrasing had a huge impact on peoples' answers and opinions. Take for example, the much contested public option -- do people want it? Do they love it? Do they hate it? Different polls can say different things. People react strongly to wording, said Blumenthal, which means public opinion can be malleable. As we've mentioned before, some recent polls came to the rather baffling conclusion that Americans were more supportive of the public option than bipartisanship, or for that matter, health care reform itself.

Our favorite slide of the event came from Mr. Blumenthal. It turns out, when you say "public option," only about 56 percent of people even know you are talking about health care at all. Energy? Unemployment? Banking? 33 percent didn't even have a good guess.

So what should we use public opinion polling for? The speakers tended to agree that public opinion polling (especially on health care) has the most value when people are asked about their beliefs, values or personal experiences. Questions like: have they missed a doctor's appointment because they couldn't afford it in the past year? Do they think health care is too expensive? Are they satisfied with the quality of care they or their family members are getting? These questions are the fuel behind reform itself. Americans want affordable, sustainable health care, and they expect the government to take action to make that a reality.

Humphrey Taylor, of Harris Interactive, said that polls describe consistent deep tides in public opinion -- so "we shouldn't be confused by ripples on the surface." The basic reactions to different concepts underlying the public option, as tested by pollsters, has been pretty consistent since July, said Blumenthal. Most people are unhappy with the current health care system and favor reform, said Taylor. They think that some kind of government intervention is necessary, but they can't agree on how much intervention is appropriate. And as polls have shown, it isn't clear what people think of or understand by the phrase "public option."

Another important fact to keep in mind is we don't have a definite, single, solid health care bill yet. Different amendments, different versions of the public option, and different versions of health care reform in general are still in the process of being merged together for a final vote. Once Americans have a singular definition of, for example, what exactly the public option means -- they might have a better idea of whether or not they support it.