Asking The Right Question For Once

It took months, but the Washington Post finally asks a real, honest to goodness poll question about if Americans want a Democrat-only bill with a public option or a bi-partisan bill without the public option, a majority of Americans want the public option bill as Greg Sargent reports.

Okay, this is important: The new Washington Post poll finally asks people about their cravings for bipartisanship in the right way, and its finding really challenges the conventional wisdom that people want bipartisan health care compromise at all costs.

Specifically: A majority wants a Dem-only bill rather than a bipartisan one if the Dem-only one includes a public insurance option and the bipartisan one doesn’t. A majority of Independents wants the same. From the internals:

Which of these would you prefer –- (a plan that includes some form of government-sponsored health insurance for people who can’t get affordable private insurance, but is approved without support from Republicans in Congress); or

(a plan that is approved with support from Republicans in Congress, but does not include any form of government-sponsored health insurance for people who can’t get affordable private insurance)?

Prefer government-sponsored insurance: 51%

Prefer Republican support: 37%

This is the first time a major news org has asked the question this way — Research 2000 did it once — and I like to pretend it was inspired by my ranting about this. By the way, 52 percent of indys want the partisan bill with the public option.

Other findings in the poll:

• On who do you trust with decisions on the country's future, 49% gave President Obama a great deal or a good deal of trust on that, Congressional Dems scored 34%...but the GOP came up just 19%.
• A majority 57% would support a government plan to compete with private insurance plans. Of the other 43%, 45% of those respondents would support a state run plan.
• 56% of Americans would support a mandate for health insurance. Of the other 44%, a third of those folks would support subsidies for individuals making up to $40k and up to $88k for a family of four.

Interesting poll results, and very encouraging to the Dems. Or, it should be...