American Attitudes on Health Security

[Rick Rowlands]

Well of course.  The entitlement mentality is firmly entrenched in American life now.  Not many want to continue to earn what they have the hard way when they can obtain it from their fellow citizens.  How many people have the kind of pride that my grandparents did?  The pride of not taking what wasn't theirs, of living within their means and of respect for other people's property.

[irishbobcat]

American Attitudes on Health Security
Despite a two-year campaign on the part of the health insurance industry to attack the federal health care law enacted in March 2010, Americans by and large remain ambivalent about reform overall, while strongly supporting almost all of its individual provisions. A CNN/Opinion Research poll in December 2010 showed that over 6 in 10 Americans favored continuing to prevent health insurance companies from dropping coverage for people who become seriously ill, or from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. And a CBS News/New York Times poll taken at the height of the Congressional repeal debate in January 2011 found that only 20% of Americans supported repealing the entire law.

Moreover, it is worth emphasizing that a significant number of those with a negative opinion of the law hold that view because they want more reform, not less. A January 2011 ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that 25% of people who said they opposed the health law did so because they believed it did not go far enough in reforming the health care system. As states move forward to create and implement their own models, they should do so with the knowledge that even many who oppose the law want states to have the resources needed to implement it well - 62% in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey said they disapproved of cutting off funding needed to implement popular reforms.