Poll: GOP Taking a Pounding on Obstruction of Health-Care Reform

Posted by DemFromCT , Daily Kos at 11:06 AM on October 9, 2009.

From Bloomberg:

Months of Republican attacks on President Barack Obama’s health-care proposals appear to have hurt the party, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

And on the Republican measure of failure, directly from the Q-poll:

But Republicans get their lowest grades since Obama was elected on several measures:

   * Voters disapprove 64 - 25 percent of the way Republicans in Congress are doing their job, with 42 percent of Republican voters disapproving;
   * Only 29 percent think Republicans on Capitol Hill are acting in good faith;
   * Voters trust Obama more than Republicans 47 - 31 percent to handle health care;
   * Voters 53 - 25 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party.

On bipartisanship here's a variation of the polling choice of words noted by Greg Sargent:

What the pollsters refuse to do, though, is ask voters whether they want a bipartisan bill if getting GOP support results in actual policy consequences they don’t like. Here’s the latest framing of the question from Quinnipiac:

Do you agree or disagree with the following: Congress should approve a health care overhaul plan even if only Democrats support it.

Agree 37%

Disagree 57%

Not surprising. But when Research 2000 recently posed the question in a policy context, asking whether people prefer a Dem-only bill with a public option versus a bipartisan bill without one, the numbers shifted dramatically, with a majority, 52%, wanting the partisan bill.

Brian Beutler notes that when the question is asked this way, “the public is perfectly fine with partisanship.” True, but it’s actually more than that: The public wants the partisan bill when it contains policy specifics they like, and cares more about the public option than about bipartisanship for its own sake.

People aren't stupid. They can tell who is trying to produce reform and who is stalling. The only bipartisanship people care about is the kind exhibited by former Congressional Republicans when they suggested getting on board with health reform before the train pulls away without them.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is not 1993. Health reform will happen. The only question is what it will look like in the end. And there's simply no way this is going to help Republicans (though without some substantial benefit before 2013, it might not help Democrats in the short term.) You can't simply say no and then claim you were looking out for the American people. But there are some Congressional Republicans who are going to learn that the hard way.

Tagged as: democrats, gop, public opinion, health-care reform

DemFromCT is a regular blogger for Daily Kos