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.