Showing posts with label polls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label polls. Show all posts
Monday, February 3, 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Fantastic Video: Heritage Foundation On The Ground At March For Life 2014 – New Poll: 62% of Americans Now Believe Abortion is Morally Wrong
Marchers braved the cold and snow in Washington, DC today for the annual March for Life. The Heritage Foundation was on the ground to capture the event and grabbed some amazing footage and interviews.
Video: Fantastic Video: Heritage Foundation On The Ground At March For Life 2014
New Poll: 62% of Americans Now Believe Abortion is Morally Wrong
Examiner: A new Knights of Columbus/Marist poll released Wednesday shows that more than six in 10 Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong.
Sixty-two percent of those polled believed that abortion is morally wrong, and only 36 percent found it morally acceptable. Two percent of Americans indicated that it was not a moral issue.
Fifty-three percent of respondents said they believe life begins at conception.
The poll shows that most Americans choose a more moderate position on abortion, but believe it should be restricted.
Support for restrictions on abortion includes 79 percent supporting a 24-hour waiting period, 58 percent supporting a woman receiving an ultrasound before her abortion and 80 percent supporting parental notification for underage patients.
Even respondents who identify themselves as strongly pro-choice indicated that they do not believe in unrestricted access to abortions.
Sixty-four percent of strongly pro-choice Americans agreed that a patient should wait 24 hours before an abortion and consult with professionals, 62 percent support parental notification and 68 percent believe doctors who perform abortions should be required to have hospital admitting privileges.
The release of the poll coincides with the National March for Life in Washington.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Obamacare Will Hurt Dems in 2014 as Progressives Shift to New Battles
The unpopularity of Obamacare will make 2014 a tough year for Democrats, especially those in red states. The Washington Post's Greg Sargent doesn't deny some Dems are already taking cover where they can, but he says they also have a strategy for making this into a broader argument.
Dems aren’t simply looking to shift away from Obamacare, but to shift the terms of the debate over it, by putting it in the context of a larger debate over the safety net, an argument Dems are already engaging pretty aggressively...
red state Dems who did vote for the law — Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu, and Mark Pryor — are in a tougher spot, and are each striking their own balance by criticizing its problems while calling for keeping and fixing it. But Dems like Hagan are aggressively joining the fight over unemployment insurance, and the party committees will be hitting Republicans hard over it.
I think there's an underlying truth here which is that parties can win battles over particular programs but that does not often translate into bigger wins. While word has certainly gotten out that Obamacare is a troubled program, the damage is probably limited to that one issue. Ideological conservatives (and some progressives) may see the obvious connection between this particular instance of big government failure and other similar programs but Americans are notorious for wanting to have it both ways.
For instance, a Gallup poll released in December found that an astounding 72 percent of Americans say big government is the biggest threat to the nation. If Americans were ideologically consistent we should see a groundswell of support for cutting back on entitlement programs which make up most of government's spending and hence its need for ever more growth and taxation. But in fact we don't see that in polls.
Satisfaction with Medicare and Social Security was 12 points lower in 2008 than it was in 2013. In 2010, 75 percent said the behemoth programs will "create problems" but in 2011 61 percent still said the solution was minor changes or to "not try to control costs." That's how it often seems to go in America. You get 3/4 of people saying entitlements are a problem and yet 2/3 say we should do little or nothing about it.
That kind of compartmentalization means that even though Americans genuinely do not like Obamacare right now and are worried about government overreach in general, they will not automatically side with Republicans against the broader progressive agenda. Each policy is its own battleground and Democrats surely know that heading toward November.
Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Entitlements
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Millennials Abandon Obama and Obamacare
A majority of America's youngest adults would vote to recall the president.
(JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
National Journal: Young Americans are turning against Barack Obama and Obamacare, according to a new survey of millennials, people between the ages of 18 and 29 who are vital to the fortunes of the president and his signature health care law.
The most startling finding of Harvard University's Institute of Politics: A majority of Americans under age 25 -- the youngest millennials -- would favor throwing Obama out of office.
The survey, part of a unique 13-year study of the attitudes of young adults, finds that America's rising generation is worried about its future, disillusioned with the U.S. political system, strongly opposed to the government's domestic surveillance apparatus, and drifting away from both major parties. "Young Americans hold the president, Congress and the federal government in less esteem almost by the day, and the level of engagement they are having in politics are also on the decline," reads the IOP's analysis of its poll. "Millennials are losing touch with government and its programs because they believe government is losing touch with them."
The results blow a gaping hole in the belief among many Democrats that Obama's two elections signaled a durable grip on the youth vote.
Indeed, millennials are not so hot on their president.
Obama's approval rating among young Americans is just 41 percent, down 11 points from a year ago, and now tracking with all adults. While 55 percent said they voted for Obama in 2012, only 46 percent said they would do so again.
When asked if they would want to recall various elected officials, 45 percent of millennials said they would oust their member of Congress; 52 percent replied "all members of Congress" should go; and 47 percent said they would recall Obama. The recall-Obama figure was even higher among the youngest millennials, ages 18 to 24, at 52 percent.
While there is no provision for a public recall of U.S. presidents, the poll question revealed just how far Obama has fallen in the eyes of young Americans.
IOP director Trey Grayson called the results a "sea change" attributable to the generation's outsized and unmet expectations for Obama, as well as their concerns about the economy, Obamacare and government surveillance.
The survey of 2,089 young adults, conducted Oct. 30 through Nov. 11, spells trouble for the Affordable Care Act. The fragile economics underpinning the law hinge on the willingness of healthy, young Americans to forgo penalties and buy health insurance.
According to the poll, 57 percent of millennials disapprove of Obamacare, with 40 percent saying it will worsen their quality of care and a majority believing it will drive up costs. Only 18 percent say Obamacare will improve their care. Among 18-to-29-year-olds currently without health insurance, less than one-third say they're likely to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges.
More than two-thirds of millennials said they heard about the ACA through the media. That's a bad omen for Obamacare, given the intensive coverage of the law's botched rollout. Just one of every four young Americans said they discussed the law with a friend or through social media. Harvard's John Della Volpe, who conducted the poll, said the president has done a poor job explaining the ACA to young Americans.
Republican and Democratic leaders should find little solace in the results. The survey said that 33 percent of young Americans consider themselves Democrats and 24 percent identify with the GOP. The largest and growing segment is among independents, 41 percent of the total.
Democrats' advantage among young voters is fading. Among the oldest millennials (ages 25 to 29), Democrats hold a 16-point lead over the GOP: 38 percent say they're Democrats, and 22 percent call themselves Republicans. Among the youngest of this rising generation (ages 18 to 24), the gap is just 6 points, 31 percent for Democrats and 25 percent for Republicans.
Approval ratings of Congress have declined steeply in the past few years, with congressional Democrats now at 35 percent and congressional Republicans at just 19 percent.
Young blacks say they are much less likely to vote in the 2014 midterm election than they were in November 2009, signaling a worrisome level of engagement among a key Democratic constituency.
In addition to health care, domestic spying is an issue that puts Obama on the wrong side of the rising generation. While split on whether Edward Snowden is a "patriot" or a "traitor" for revealing Obama's surveillance programs, strong majorities of 18-to-29-year-olds oppose the government collecting information from social networks, Web-browsing histories, email, GPS locations, telephone calls, and text messages.
College loans are a big issue with young Americans, too. Nearly six of 10 called student debt a major problem, and another 22 percent called it a minor one. Seventy percent said their financial situation played into their decision whether to attend college.
Respondents were given a list of options for shrinking the nation's debt. Majorities favored suggestions to tax the rich, cut foreign economic aid in half, slash the nuclear-warhead arsenal, and reduce food stamps.
The results conform with a story I did this summer with the help of the IOP ("The Outsiders: How Can Millennials Change Washington If They Hate It?"), arguing that while Millennials are deeply committed to public service they don't see government as an efficient way to improve their lives or their communities.
The IOP report issued today said: "This is not to say that young Americans are rejecting politics, the role of government and the promise of America more generally. They are sending a message to those in power that for them to re-engage in government and politics, the political process must be open, collaborative and have the opportunity for impact -- and not one that simply perpetuates well-worn single issue agendas."
The survey was conducted online. The National Journal generally refrains from covering online-only polls but has made past exceptions. In this case, Harvard's IOP survey uniquely focuses on millennials with accumulated data set and a credible polling operation.
(Find full poll results here: http://www.iop.harvard.edu/)
Sunday, August 11, 2013
What a Survey of 1,400 Sued Doctors Can Tell Us About Health Care Reform
The Razor: Ever wonder how malpractice lawsuits turn out and what their effects on physicians are? Then click here for a slideshow showing the results of a study of 1,400 physicians who were sued for malpractice. There are several interesting points to take from this survey, including the fact that the majority of plaintiffs, 57%, received no monetary reward. But the one thing that stands out by far should be the advice these doctors give on slide 22:
- Follow up even when you think you don’t have to.
- Practice more defensive medicine.
- Document more often, more thoroughly.
- Get rid of rude, demanding, noncompliant patients.
Anyone who expects doctors, particularly primary care physicians (who also happen to be the most likely to be sued) to take on the responsibility of lowering health care costs by ordering fewer unnecessary tests and procedures (I’m looking at you Professor Mead) are simply delusional. Doctors do not have any incentive to stop ordering these procedures, quite the opposite. Whenever they rule out a particular test they must consider a bullet-proof and infallible reason why the test is not required in case they have to testify on the Stand to support their decision. In medicine, as in life, there are few situations that can attain such a level of infallibility. A runny nose can indicate a cold or allergy in a hundred thousand cases but it can also can result from a leak of cerebral-spinal fluid into the nasal cavity in rare instances. Should a doctor order the highly invasive – and expensive – test to rule out this leak in the snot-faced six year old kid sniffling in front of her? This is an extreme example of course, but the point stands: why should doctors risk being sued, a type of punishment judging by the emotional toll the survey shows, for trying to contain costs?
It would seem to me that if you want to reduce unnecessary testing you would address the reasons why they are ordered in the first place, yet this has not been done. While some states have attempted to limit the maximum amount a plaintiff can be awarded from a successful malpractice suit, none have made laws to make it harder to file them in the first place. The cynic may see the hand of self-interest here, with the lawyers who write the laws the ones also profiting from malpractice lawsuits. After all, scientifically dubious malpractice lawsuits almost elevated former Sen. John Edwards to the White House. But to ask doctors to refrain from ordering unnecessary tests and procedures without legal reform is like asking them to commit professional suicide.
The last item is particularly interesting. Legally doctors in private practice do not have to treat everyone who comes through the door. They can turn down patients for any reason. Once they establish a relationship with a patient they can also terminate that care at any time as long as they do not abandon them, usually by offering to care for them for a period of time when they can establish care with another provider. Many medical system reformers have talked zealously about basing payments to doctors on the success based measures, for example, on how well their diabetes patients’ blood sugar levels are controlled. Every practice has a coterie of diabetes patients who are non-compliant. They come in suffering from associated illnesses and for whatever reason refuse to control their blood sugar levels through exercise and diet, then expect the doctor to fix them. Such outcome based reimbursement schemes will only lead to doctors drafting letters telling these patients to find another provider. But even for doctors who aren’t reimbursed partly based on outcomes, it is in their interest to get rid of these patients who are more likely to complain and perhaps sue them.
Doctors have done a poor job at getting their point across in the health care debate in America. This is partly due to the nature of the profession, which tends to operate in solo or small groups and not think in broader terms the way other professions such as teachers and lawyers have done. It is also due to the corruption of the American Medical Association through years of operation in Washington DC reaching it’s pinnacle in the organization’s support of Obamacare in 2010 against the best interests of its own membership (but in line with the leftist ideology of the organization’s staff). But doctors had better learn quickly because if they don’t their profession will become extinct, and the healthcare of Americans will be even worse than it is today… much worse!
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Thanks Obamacare: 83% of Doctors Surveyed Say They May Quit
Kate Hicks – TownHall.com
The Doctor Patient Medical Association has released a new survey of about 700 doctors, and the results are bleak. Scary bleak. Among other dismal figures, Doctors' Attitudes on the Future of Medicine: What’s Wrong, Who’s to Blame, and What Will Fix It found that 83% of respondents are contemplating leaving the industry if Obamacare is fully implemented, owing to its disastrous projected consequences. Indeed, they openly blame the healthcare law for their industry's woes:
KEY FINDINGS
- 90% say the medical system is on the WRONG TRACK
- 83% say they are thinking about QUITTING
- 61% say the system challenges their ETHICS
- 85% say the patient-physician relationship is in a TAILSPIN
- 65% say GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT is most to blame for current problems
- 72% say individual insurance mandate will NOT result in improved access care
- 49% say they will STOP accepting Medicaid patients
- 74% say they will STOP ACCEPTING Medicare patients, or leave Medicare completely
- 52% say they would rather treat some Medicaid/Medicare patient for FREE
- 57% give the AMA a FAILING GRADE representing them
- 1 out of 3 doctors is HESITANT to voice their opinion
- 2 out of 3 say they are JUST SQUEAKING BY OR IN THE RED financially
- 95% say private practice is losing out to CORPORATE MEDICINE
- 80% say DOCTORS/MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS are most likely to help solve things
- 70% say REDUCING GOVERNMENT would be single best fix.
If this isn't an airtight argument for the repeal of Obamacare, nothing is. When the people providing the actual healthcare are thinking of getting out of the game, the system is clearly broken. Here's hoping the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare this month.
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