NOW HERE'S A FIGHT THE GOP CAN WIN...AGAIN:

Poll: Public Will Sour on Overhaul When Hill Debates the Details (John Reichard, 1/15/09, CQ)

[T]he findings detail the difficult terrain of public opinion that change-minded lawmakers must negotiate. “This is the audience they have to talk to and who they have to bring along,” said Mollyann Brodie, director of public opinion for the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which conducted the survey along with researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health.

“The economic crisis has created an unprecedented window of opportunity for health reform,” said Kaiser CEO Drew Altman. “But we are in the early happy-talk stage on health reform, and the window could close if policymakers cannot move fairly quickly to take advantage of the opportunity they have.”

The survey was conducted Dec. 4-14 using a random sample of 1,628 adults ages 18 and older. [...]

But support faded when people were heard criticisms of specific approaches. Thus 71 percent said they would favor requiring employers to offer insurance or pay money into a government pool but that support dropped to 29 percent when those polled were asked what if they heard that paying for this may cause some employers to lay off some workers. Similarly, 67 percent said they would favor requiring all Americans to have health insurance with help for those who could not afford it. But only 19 percent said they would still support such a mandate if they heard that this could mean some people would be required to buy health insurance that they find too expensive or did not want.

Those kinds of criticisms of such mandates have been made in past debates, the pollsters said.

Majorities of those surveyed said they would be less likely to support a plan if they heard it would cause the government to get too involved in their personal health care decisions, that it was going to increase premiums or other out-of-pocket costs to rise, or that it would limit their own choice of doctors.

With respect to cost controls, sixty-six percent expressed support when asked if they would favor the creation of “a new independent federal scientific body which would decide whether approved new medical technology, procedures, and drugs should be covered by insurance, based on whether they are proven to be more effective than existing, less expensive treatments.”

But when told that “this might mean that in some cases, treatments or drugs recommended by a person’s own doctor wouldn’t be covered by their health insurance,” support plummeted to 32 percent and 63 percent said they were opposed.

There was clear bipartisan support for regulation; 78 percent of Americans favored requiring health insurance companies to cover anyone who applies, even if they have a pre-existing condition. This level of support remained high — 72 percent —even when those polled were given the argument often made that such a change may raise costs for healthier people as it lowers them for those who are less healthy. Seventy-seven percent of Democrats favored eliminating exclusions for pre-existing conditions and 58 percent of Republicans.

Sixty-five percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor limiting administrative expenses health insurers can claim and 62 percent favor limiting the profits they can earn. This was true of majorities of both Democrats and Republicans.

Fifty-one percent of the public said there isn’t enough regulation of health care costs and 52 percent said there isn’t enough regulation of prescription drug prices.

With respect to taxes, 63 percent said they strongly favored increasing the cigarette tax to expand coverage and 51 percent said they favor doing so by raising income taxes for families making more than $250,000 a year. But the pollsters noted that cigarettes have been hit with tax hikes repeatedly.

And Harvard pollster Robert Blendon said in an interview after the briefing that his separate polling at the state level as the recession deepens shows that people are “furious” at the idea of raising state taxes to close budget shortfalls.

Raising federal taxes to fund a health expansion as a way to help people whose biggest complaint is about the affordability of care is likely to be extremely unpopular, he said.

That leaves policy makers with a dilemma, he noted. Where will they find the revenue to pay for a coverage expansion when opposition to a employer mandate could be strong and the downturn makes higher taxes even more unpopular?