Polls show stable attitudes on public option, abortion

A Bloomberg poll conducted Dec. 3-7 found, on health care, "about half of poll respondents saying they disapprove of the plans in Congress to overhaul the system. Sixty-two percent of Americans say they are mostly pessimistic they would benefit from [a health-care bill Congress may pass.] The youngest Americans are more optimistic, with 47 percent of those under 35 saying they would benefit." In addition, "Americans are almost evenly split -- 46 percent to 45 percent -- in their support for the proposed government-run health-insurance program known as the public option." The poll had a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points (Przybyla and Johnston, 12/9).

CBS News reports that "Americans' views about the government funding abortions, and about abortion itself, have remained stable for many years." In a CBS News poll conducted last month, more than half of Americans said "that health care reform should not cover abortions, while just 34 percent thought it should. … In 1994, CBS and the New York Times found 53 percent of Americans thought abortion should not be part of any government health care plan. In CBS News Polls conducted in the late 1970s, about half felt the government should not 'help a poor woman with her medical bills if she wants an abortion'" (Dutton, 12/8).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.