Poll: Support for Democratic health plan hits new low

"Just 41% of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That's down two points from a week ago and the lowest level of support yet measured," Rasmussen reports on its latest poll. "The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% are opposed to the plan."

In addition, "[s]enior citizens are less supportive of the plan than younger voters. In the latest survey, just 33% of seniors favor the plan while 59% are opposed. The intensity gap among seniors is significant. Only 16% of the over-65 crowd Strongly Favors the legislation while 46% are Strongly Opposed." And, "[f]or the first time ever, a slight plurality of voters now express doubt that the legislation will become law this year" (9/28).

For Republicans, the poll could be good news for the 2010 midterm elections, The Christian Science Monitor reports. "More than bank bailouts, stimulus spending, or illegal immigration - other hot-button issues for voters in middle America - the overhaul of the US healthcare system would affect every family. Increasingly, voters expect that the impact to be negative." The specter of big government and deficits, GOP pollster Whit Ayres says, "opens a real door for Republican resurgence in 2010, primarily because the views of independents are far closer to Republicans than Democrats on fiscal issues." Campaigning against big government has worked before. "Insurgent Republicans took back the House of Representatives in 1994 by campaigning against big government and a 1993 Clinton healthcare plan they said could have bankrupted the nation" (Chaddock, 9/28).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.