Polls Are In The Eye Of The Beholder

Greg Sargent takes Rasmussen Reports latest health care poll to task:

Well, this week brings a new example. Here’s the headline on Rasmussen’s latest press release touting its poll on health care:

49% Say Obama Should Delay Health Care Reform Until Economy Is Better

And it’s true that the Ras poll found this. But if you dig down into the poll, you find that it also found another number that’s just as newsworthy, if not more so. From the Ras release:

Seventy-eight percent (78%) of voters acknowledge, however, that reining in health spending is at least somewhat important to improving the nation’s economy. That includes 46% who say it is Very Important.

That’s a striking, headline-worthy finding. An enormous majority — nearly 30 points more than the number who said Obama should delay health care reform — believes the central argument being made for reforming health care right now.

But, Rasmussen is only interested in giving Americans a loaded question, which needs to be fixed right now, health care or the economy? In that zero sum game, of course the overall economy is more important.

The answer, as an overwhelming percentage of voters -- seventy-eight percent --say, the answer is clearly both. Fixing health care will help to fix the economy and nearly 4 out of 5 Americans believe this. But Rasmussen would have you believe half of Americans are instead against Obama's health care reforms, period.

The wingnuts are already jumping on this poll as proof Americans are now against Obamacare, when the truth is they want to see both the economy and health care significantly reformed.