Robert Gibbs/Gallup

To end the semester in the Public Opinion course, I want to post a link I just found about what the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs thinks of the Gallup polling numbers accuracy in regard to the presidential approval ratings. As an appetizer for his response, he said that the Poll is like a 6-year-old child.

Conflicted Conservatism

Earlier in the semester, we learned about the phenomenon known as "conflicted conservatism," where those who claim to be conservative actually take up viewpoints that are known to be more liberal. While this concept is found with a lot of current issues, the current issue of health care reform does not appear to be one of them.

According to recent poll results released from Rasmussen Reports on Monday, only 73 percent of Democrats currently approve of the proposed health care reforms, while 83 percent of Republicans oppose the bill along with 70 percent of Independents. This same poll finds that only 38 percent of Americans approve of the bill.

These findings are interesting as it shows almost the opposite of conflicted conservatism. It appears that on this issue, there is more of a conflicted liberalism, as a vast majority of registered Democrats are not in favor of these proposed health care reforms that the president from their party is in favor of.

Healthcare beliefs

When President Obama proposed massive reforms to the health care industry, it was mainly to reduce costs and make quality health care more affordable for all Americans. However, as more and more details about the health care plan is coming out, fewer Americans believe that the costs will be lowered with this new bill.

A Rasmussen poll conducted today (Monday the 23rd) found that only 16 percent of Americans actually believe that the new health care bill will result in lower health care costs, as opposed to the 60 percent of Americans who believe that the new bill will make the cost of health care even more expensive. An additional 54 percent of those polled believe that the quality of health care will not improve under the new plan.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform

Senate Healthcare Rating

Since the reforms to health care has passed from the House to the floor of the Senate, more and more people are giving their opinions on how they feel about these reforms that will remake about one-sixth of the US economy.

According to a recent poll by the Rasmussen polling agency, the public's support for these reforms keeps getting lower and lower. The study finds that a mere 38 percent of Americans support the plan that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are attempting to pass, while a whopping 56 percent of the country opposes the plan.

With this many Americans against this plan, it will be interesting to see how everything goes down with the passing of this bill.

Scientific Polling

Several weeks ago, we discussed the difference between scientific and non-scientific polling in class. Scientific polling was stated to be polling where research was done and there was random or systematic sampling done to make sure that almost all demographics of people had their opinions taken, while non-scientific polling is polling that is done where anyone and everyone can vote, without taking into consideration that there are uneven proportions of people being polled, and that people can vote as many times as they want.

On CNN, they had a poll listed on the side of their front page related to health care, asking if you wanted to live to be 100 year old. As of 11 a.m. on Wednesday, 46% of people polled said they did want to live to be 100, while 54% said they did not. At the bottom of the results, the phrase "this poll is not scientific" was listed.

New Fox Poll

By initiating reform of the health care system, President Obama has taken a lot of criticism on both sides of the political aisle, but mainly from conservatives and Republicans. Because of his undertaking in such a controversial and large entity like health care, his approval rating has taken a hit, and a new poll conducted by Fox News reveals this.

According to this poll by Fox News, if the 2012 Presidential Election were held today, only 43% of the country would vote for President Obama, a stunning percentage for a president that has only been in office for a little over 9 months. The poll also shows that only 49 percent of the country approves of the job he is doing and only 42 percent approve of the work that he is doing on the health care field.

These low approval and re-election numbers, although very early in his presidency, can be pinned to his aggressive attempted reform of the health care industry. Although we don't know what the future holds for these reforms, we can tell now that his popularity has plummeted due to these changes he is trying to make.

Health Care Polling History

During Thursday's class, we met at the library to research the history of the different issues that we are studying. After skimming through the different resources for polling research, there were several interesting things about health care polling that I noticed.

Probably the most interesting thing that I noticed was that virtually all of the polling on health care began in 1993, which coincided with when former President Bill Clinton was working on the original health care reform in America.

The reason I found this interesting is that health care has been an essential part of American's lives for decades and centuries and I found it interesting that people's opinions weren't taken on this issue until the early 1990's. I thought that there would at least be a few polls asking about how people felt about their coverage, and after skimming through the archives it ended up being that way.

I guess the thing to learn about that is that polling follows what is going on in the public and political arena, and unless there is dialogue about a particular issue, than polls are unlikely to be taken.