Poll: Americans' health reform fears eased in January

"With President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in limbo, Americans' fears about its effect on them eased in January, according to a poll released as the president tries to revive sweeping Democratic legislation," The Associated Press/MSNBC reports. "The monthly poll from the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation also found that three-fourths of Americans still think it's important that Obama include health care reform in addressing the nation's economic crisis — even if many have misgivings."

In addition, "[t]he poll found that the proportion of Americans who said they feared their access to doctors and hospitals would get worse under the Democratic plans dropped to 29 percent, from 33 percent who had expressed such concerns in December. In the January poll fewer than 12 percent said that they thought their access would improve" (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/23).

The survey from the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers and analysis from the State Health Access Data Assistance Center has a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percentage points and was conducted Jan. 3-26.