Poll: Americans want health-care bill, but not cost

Susan Page - USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Most Americans want a big health care bill passed this year, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, but they are less enthusiastic about paying for it.
And while a majority of respondents say controlling costs should be the legislation's top goal, more than 9 in 10 oppose limits on getting whatever tests or treatments they and their doctor think are necessary.

The findings underscore the difficult path ahead for the White House and Congress as the health care debate enters crunch time. President Obama, who has called for the House and Senate to pass bills within the next few weeks, was meeting Monday afternoon with two key congressional chairmen to try to hammer out financing for the $1 trillion-plus legislation.

"For those naysayers and cynics who think that this is not going to happen, don't bet against us," Obama said earlier in the day as he announced the appointment of Regina Benjamin as U.S. surgeon general. "We are going to make this thing happen because the American people desperately need it."

One advantage for the president: A third of those surveyed say they trust him and congressional Democrats most when it comes to changing health care; 10% choose congressional Republicans. Doctors and hospitals are trusted the most, by 45%. Just 4% choose insurance companies.

The poll of 3,026 adults, surveyed Friday through Sunday by landline and cellphone, has a margin of error of +/— 2 percentage points. Some of the questions, asked of half the sample, have an error margin of +/— 3 points.

By 56%-33%, those surveyed endorse the idea of enacting major health care reform this year. Half call it extremely or very important to them personally; just 1 in 4 say it's not important.

Ask about proposals to help pay the costs, though, and there are sharper divisions — and potential openings for critics who may oppose the final bill.

Six of 10 favor the idea of requiring employers to provide health insurance to their workers or pay a fee to the government instead. The idea of increasing income taxes on upper-income Americans, an approach backed by House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, is backed by 58%. Just over half support taxing sugary soft drinks.

However, by 53%-43% most oppose taxing health care benefits above a certain level — Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus had been floating that idea — and even more are against cutting Medicare costs. Savings in Medicare are part of both House and Senate versions of health care bills.

Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy at Harvard, says the results show the friction between competing goals of the health care bills.

"The dilemma is that Congress is trying to solve two problems simultaneously: Save money and insure more people," Blendon says. In the USA TODAY poll, 52% choose controlling costs as more important; 42% expanding coverage. Those focused on costs are likely to have little tolerance for paying higher taxes to cover the uninsured, he says.

More than 8 in 10 of those surveyed say it's extremely or very important that the legislation make health insurance more affordable, but they also express strong resistance to some steps that might help control costs. Ninety-three percent want their health care plan to cover any medical test or treatment that they and their doctor think is needed, and 88% want to be able to choose any doctor or hospital they like.