By Cliff Montgomery – Dec. 16th, 2009
The U.S. public now sees Congressional plans to change America’s health-care system as little more than adisaster which can only create higher medical costs while making the quality of care even worse, according to arecent Washington Post-ABC News poll.
With the Senate dropping any public option from its “reform”, broad support for health-care change is fallingfast.
Americans, on the whole, still recognize that some government action will be needed to get a handle onout-of-control medical costs, and to create some form of health-care coverage for the roughly 46 millioncitizens who usually cannot afford insurance.
But with no public option–a move strongly supported by a majority of Americans–public enthusiasm formassive changes in our health-care system appear to be collapsing. There are even signs the recent turn ofevents in Congress has hurt President Obama’s popularity.
A full 53 percent of those polled predict that their medical costs will rise if the changes now proposed in theSenate are made law.
A greater majority–55 percent–say the basic costs of America’s health-care system will be even more steep ifthe Senate has its way.
Only 37 percent now honestly believe that the quality of health care will be superior under the proposed newsystem.
And one of every two Americans believe our current, wildly over-priced health care system is better than the defacto insurance monopolies now being proposed.
They may be right.
