Four Out Of Five Americans Want A Public Option

From MyDD:

A new survey commissioned by the AARP asks respondents to what degree they support or oppose "[s]tarting a new federal health insurance plan that individuals could purchase if they can't afford private plans offered to them" -- a public option, in other words. The results are interesting, though not necessarily surprising to those who have been closely following the debate.

All: 79 percent favor/18 percent oppose
Democrats: 89 percent favor/8 percent oppose
Republicans: 61 percent favor/33 percent oppose
Independents: 80 percent favor/16 percent oppose

Not only does a public option enjoy strong support (AARP finds 37 percent strongly supporting such a choice), it enjoys broad support -- a finding based not only in this new survey but also in SurveyUSA polling released last week.

Those numbers are staggering. Even a majority of Republicans want the public option when defined in this manner. This should be a no-brainer, guys.

The issue of course is when public option is defined fairly as in the poll above and in the SurveyUSA poll last week (I talked about that 77% approval number here) Americans overwhelmingly want a public option. When it is defined the way Republicans see it, as a government takeover of your heath care plan (which the plan is not) of course people don't like it. It's like asking people "Do you like children?" and then asking them "Do you want a money sink of a parasite that you have to care for and pay for over the next eighteen years?" and then saying the results of the second question proves America's views on the first.

The problem of course is that the GOP and the Village (and the insurance corporations behind them) have everything to gain from defining the public option as the worst possible thing on Earth. The GOP is winning the message war.