We hesitate to bring more attention to something that pretty much didn’t make a ripple, but when the Herald picks up only the misleading part of a State House New Service story, leaving out our responses, and when right-wing blogs start spreading the news, it’s up to us provide fairness and balance.
The issue is a poll released yesterday by the infamous Rasmussen Reports. The poll purports to show only 26% of Massachusetts voters think health reform is a success, while 37% think it’s a failure (37% are not sure).
The poll was taken for the Boston Fox TV station, and the pollster is well-known for skewing results to the right:
“[P]olling is a crowded business. And Rasmussen doesn’t also have a daily newspaper or a television network to tout his results. His business, however, requires attention. So how does he get that attention? Well in part he gets it with issue polling that, while basically methodologically sound, has question-wording that’s designed to lead to conservative-friendly results.” – Matt Ygelesias
“But the qualitative questions, in terms of their phrasing and so forth, are frequently skewed to give answers friendly toward GOP or conservative viewpoints.” – Joshua Marshall
“Rasmussen is influential because its carefully crafted questions that produce answers that conservatives like. .. The result is that polls with extremely favorable numbers for Republican stances leap into the public arena every week, quickly becoming accepted wisdom.” – David Wegel
This June 20 graph, from polling guru Nate Silver, shows how Rasumussen’s polling on national health reform is an outlier compared to every other polling firm:
Like the polls in the graph, everyone else find that health reform has broad support in Massachusetts. The Rasmussen question was worded in terms of “success” or “failure,” with no context or explanation.
The Urban Institute survey asked a much better-worded question in summer 2008:
“Now I have some general questions about health insurance in Massachusetts. As you may know, Massachusetts has a law that is aimed at providing health insurance for all Massachusetts residents. In general, do you support or oppose this Massachusetts law?”
The results were: Support: 74%; Oppose: 14% (Don’t know: 12%)
The Urban Institute poll used a sample that included cell phone-only households, unlike Rassmussen. The Urban sample exceeded 4,900 households, compared to the Rassmussen sample of 500. The sample was also weighted using a validated algorithm to correct for sample bias.
Similarly, the Harvard School of Public Health polled 963 residents last summer, and found 69% support and 22% opposition among people familiar with the law.
There’s no question in our minds that the Rasmussen poll was done to influence the debate in Washington, and to provide speech fodder for those opposed to national reform.
Health reform has been enormously successful in its stated goal – expanding access to the uninsured. The remaining challenges of cost and quality are being addressed, but more remains to be done. We’re not stopping.
-Brian Rosman
If you believe any poll that Rasmussen puts out you might as well believe in Santa Klaus.
Rasmussen is well known for it’s providing Republicans with the best polling that money can buy.
From widipedia:
Scott Rasmussen was a paid consultant for the 2004 George W. Bush campaign. Rasmussen presidential polling numbers tend to be an outlier among samples taken from other polling organizations. Others have pointed out that the reason Rasmussen’s polls trend more Republican than other mainstream polls is simply that he samples likely voters. [11] John Marshal of Talking Points Memo has said, “The toplines tend to be a bit toward the Republican side of the spectrum, compared to the average of other polls. But if you factor that in they’re pretty reliable. Networks such as MSNBC simply do not use Rasmussen polls. Conversely, conservative media frequently refers to Rasmussen, praising them for being the first to ask about a relevant issue or to ask questions that other polsters do not.
Try this poll
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2008-releases/hsph-bcbs-poll-strong-support-for-ma-health-reform-law.html
Brian,
This question “As you may know, Massachusetts has a law that is aimed at providing health insurance for all Massachusetts residents. In general, do you support or oppose this Massachusetts law?” reads in the minds eye as “Do you think all people should be provided with insurance?” It is much more misleading than the poll you cite as biased.
An honest phrasing would be “Do you think your financial future-your raises, competitiveness and viability of your business or employer should be squandered by a punitive law which forces you to fund massively inefficient health insurance bureaucracies with your healthcare premiums or should the state be directed to eliminate insurers and build the single payer care system which is working quite well around the globe?
There’s a reason GM and Chrysler are bankrupt. They were known as healthcare companies who happened to make cars, while GM in Canada made cars for $3000 less per unit. The old Wall St. saw was “What’s good for GM is good for America”. Brian, I consider your advocacy of the Massachusetts mandated extortion of residents to be an act of treason. And please don’t cite all the poor who’ve been enrolled for very expensive “free” care. I’m paying their bills which would be a small fraction under a single payer system. Additionally, any 8 year old could have taken the state checkbook and enrolled the entire free care pool.
The pot calling the kettle black. MA powerbrokers and cheerleaders of the MA plan have been skewing the numbers since inception. Smoke and mirrors. Now along comes what could be an honest poll (Rasmussen), and you’re all over it.
Come out here in the trenches and you won’t find much support for this punitive decree. In fact, Health for All MA is biased because it is willing to trot out only success stories when there are so many who are being exploited and harmed by the MA scheme which is failing, and you can’t even admit to that.
Also, check out the 2007 DOR final report on the individual mandate dated October 2008 which is the most recent one available, and you’ll see the following: 95% of the 96% expected to file a 2007 tax return claimed to be insured. That’s not 98%.
The 2008 report won’t be ready until fall. No news is good news when the nation is watching.
btw, whether it’s 95% or 98%, everyone does not have access to care due to affordability and doctors who won’t take Comm. Care members. btw, the “churn” is stunning: more disenrollments per month than enrollments which means people are bouncing in and out of plans.
As one outreach specialist who deals with helping people through this bureaucratic morass put it: perhaps we will wake up one day and find out this has just been a bad dream.