Poll: Support for health care reform retreats to pre-speech levels

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Bounces and bubbles are two of the more common terms used by pollsters in American politics. Lately they have been used to describe the post-speech increase in the number of voters who had begun siding with President Obama’s proposals to overhaul health care.

While there has been some good news for the administration since the President’s major address before Congress last week according to at least two new polls it would appear the bouncing ball of confidence is resettling and the bubble is bursting.

The latest dose of bad medicine for Obama and supporters of health care reform comes from surveys conducted by Rasmussen and USA Today/Gallup. Last Thursday Rasmussen reported that 44% of voters were in favor of the President’s health care plan. Seven days later those numbers are back to being identical to the aforementioned total. This after an early-week post-speech bounce that saw them climb to a 51-46% approval to disapproval.

CNN/Opinion Research closely mirrored the previous findings from Rasmussen and other polling outlets. Their figures also indicated a rise to 51% support for Obama’s plan after it had been at only 44% prior to the President’s speech. New CNN numbers are likely to arrive in the coming days. For now USA Today offers up its own batch of damaging numbers for the administration and its mission to win over the hearts and minds of the American public.

When asked whether they would advise their member of congress to vote for or against a health care this year 38% were in favor of a yay vote, 40% were against and 22% had no opinion. The 22% of those without a strong opinion from the 1,030 adults polled broke fairly even (50-47%) for and against their representative voting on a bill. Other figures indicate that while a small plurality of adults think health care coverage in America will improve with the passing of a bill only 34% think the costs will improve and just 30% believe the overall quality will get better against 41% who think it will get worse.

Even worse is the confidence those have in Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on middle income families to help pay for his reform proposals. 60% of Americans do not believe such goals can be accomplished without raising taxes against just 38% who are confident.

Reflecting back on the Rasmussen survey the figures suggest a remarkably stable position coming from the American public. Even as the issue continues to dominate headlines and with education on the topic surely increases as well the number of those opposed to the President’s plan (53%) has been relatively stable since mid-July. Scott Rasmussen points out in the Wall Street journal that while many Americans see the logic in reform for the system as a whole 68% of them rate their own coverage as good or excellent. Why tinker with a system you are happy with, especially if you fear that you have more to lose than to gain?

One thing Americans do seem more confident about is the political muscle of President Obama and Democrats to pass reform before the end of the year. Half think passage is at least somewhat likely but a far smaller percentage of the public (27%) believes that the quality of care will actually improve in the event of a new bill. That total is fairly consistent with the quarter of Americans who strongly support the President's plan.

While any number of news stories report that Democrats and Republicans are far from uniting on a compromise, the new numbers also show support for reform from the American public retreating to pre-speech numbers. Furthermore with around three-quarters of the American public somewhat against, strongly opposed or remaining uncertain of health care reform the path to success in all aspects of the issue remains a treacherous one traveled for the President.