Although not everyone in the United States has a healthy
insurance cover, health care reform is one of the major issues that the
public wanted to be addressed. Health care reform entails implementation
of principle that that would lead to reduced health care costs,
guarantee the choice of doctors and also assure the public of high
quality medical care. Many people view health care to be too expensive.
Public opinion is very important when it comes to public health issues
and if ignored, the health care reform can be a cause of many problems.
Public opinion has been of great influence to the implementation of
health care reforms. For instance a doctor inFloridadid not want to
treat any patient who agreed with president Obama’s health care reforms.
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This paper is going to discuss the public as an interest group with
regard to the healthcare reform bill. Although the public was divided in
regard to whether public health reform would have a positive or
negative impact, public opinion played a very important role. The health
reform policy was being objected due to high insurance cost as shown in
the Washingtonpost on April 2nd 2010.
Public opinion is one of the important parts of political circles.
Attitudes of the public towards healthcare reform influence the actions
that are taken by politicians.
According to the Rasmussen report, more than half the voters in the
United Statessupported the healthcare legislation. The rasmusses report
on healthcare reform was released in May 2010.
Americans believe that in a democracy, it is the duty of the government to pay heed to public opinion.
Democratic government assumes that the public is both informed and
interested. Public opinion on healthcare reform is very important and it
should be listened to by congress. A divided public made it difficult
for the congress to vote for the bill. The variances in public opinion
led to variances in the voting by congress. On March 2010, votes by
congress were 56% for and 43% against the health care reform. This is
not so different from the public’s opinion. This is so because public
opinion is influenced by the political affiliations of people.
There are some roles that the public opinion has to carry out on the
health care reform bill especially those to do with cost. The bill was
signed by president Barrack Obama on 23rd March 2010.
The new health care policy would not be made legitimate only by
government. If it is made by the government unilaterally, the public is
bound to object and not obey it. This will lead to conflict between the
public and the government. Presidential candidates frequently embrace
such concepts in the abstract. It is expected that any new law will be
faced with opposition and a few problems. The current healthcare system
has some problems, for instance, a large proportion of the public cannot
access health insurance due to its high cost.
Many citizens advocate for health care reform and have the desire to
change the government’s duties in health care. Citizens as well as some
politicians suggested some changes in the policy for example Senator
Edward Kennedy pointed out three perspectives which include the cost
control of medical care, the three tiered system of coverage and the
fresh thinking project which connotes on the eight fundamental
essentials for a successful reform (498).Senator Kennedy argued that
this would be a representation of public opinion.
One of the greatest worry that the public has is being charged high
taxes due to the implementation of public health reform. Research
indicates that since the law went into effect, there are more and more
people signing up for subsidized insurance.
The cost of healthcare has sky rocketed. Many people wanted the
health care reforms even though they knew it would lead to increases
cost in terms of health care. In a report by Blendon et al,the chat
‘Massachusetts Resident’ Support for Sources of Revenue to cover Health
care reform budget shortfall in 2008 shows that numerous people can be
patient with increasing taxes on cigarette taxes and business penalties
specifically. Fifty seven percent of the public who participated in the
poll agree with increases in cigarette taxes and Forty- seven percent of
the public strongly support charging businesses with many part- time
employees receiving subsidized insurance. (Blendon et al 563).
Most people want to get equal and high quality health care and this
report demonstrated that many people expected this much from health care
reform. There are no problems that don’t have a solution, so as much as
the government picks up the public opinion, the problem could work out
much more easily, and public also will accept what the government
decides even though taxes are increasing. Besides wanting the taxes to
reduce, the public wants those people who have been unable to get
insurance cover due to preexisting health conditions to be able to do so
after the implementation of the new law. According to the Health Reform
(Para3), the public has been advocating for a high risk pool program to
be implemented.
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Favorable public opinion remained the largest obstacle to the health
care reform. Even though lawmakers comprehended there to be complete
support for widespread reporting, analysis of public opinion showed the
support to be complex. It was very important to know how many
Americans wanted to reform the health care system and the answer could
be shown from public opinion. As I mentioned above, the high costs of
health insurance is one of the problems. Then, through the special
public opinion polls, we can figure out the public’s thoughts.
According to the political scientist Teixeira who polled about what
percentage of the public agree with health care reform, “fifty- six
percent” of Americans wanted health care reform even though the budget
deficit is rising, but they wanted to continue to work on it should
health care reform pass or not. As time went by, the number of citizens
who supported health care reforms was increasing more than before.
Citizens showed their opinions in these kinds of specially polls which
are practiced by government institutions and many
political scientists and economists.
According to an article by Maggie Fox,’ Americans willing to fund
healthcare reform:poll’,sixty- two percent of Americans agreed with a
new health care program like this, even after considering the increase
in taxes that would have to be
imposed on them to finances it (Brady, Kessler A.19). From this public
opinion, the health care reform is much supported by citizens, and for
the people who oppose this policy, the government should figure out why
they do not want this reform policy. Especially many wealthy people are
opposed to health care reform because they would have to pay more taxes for uninsured people.
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Wealthy people already have to pay for their own individual health
insurance. So even if health care reform did not pass, they would not
have incurred losses in their income. Hence, many high class people and
people who tend to be conservative, such as Republicans, think health
care reform means loss on both themselves and the economic situation.
They think that `they have to spend more money than before when they
just had their own health insurance. They think the government also has a
risk of deficit. The government figures out why many citizens support
health care reform through the public opinion. According to the article,
‘Winning Quality Affordable Health Care for All’ in Social Policy,
Richard Kirsch showed what elements should be included in health care
reform, “guaranteed coverage, standard benefits that mere people’s
health care needs, affordable to individuals and families, based on a
sliding scale, affordable to employers, particularly small business,
government playing a strong watchdog role on and offering everyone a
choice of a private or public”.
The majority of citizens believe that the health care reform is
justifiable. For these reasons, to accept public opinion was meaningful
to U.S.government.
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