WSJ: Polling Entitlement Reform

[TomCADem]

Source: Wall Street Journal

The CBS News/New York Times poll is thought to skew a little to the left due to its tendency to oversample Democrats. That's why Washington insiders sat up and took notice on Good Friday, when the poll reported that a plurality of Americans actually approve of GOP Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare reforms.

A startling 47% approved of changing Medicare from a program in which the government "pays doctors and hospitals for treating seniors" to a program in which the government "helps seniors purchase private health insurance." Only 41% disagreed.

* * *
The Times poll contains other data that should worry President Obama if he continues to demagogue the House-passed GOP budget. By 55% to 33%, Americans prefer a smaller government with fewer services to a bigger government with more services. That basic 3-to-2 ratio -- indicating this is a center-right nation -- has prevailed for a quarter-century.

Similarly, by 2-to-1 Americans would rather cut spending on programs that benefit them than see their taxes go up. Even when it comes to Medicare spending, respondents in the Times poll say they are "willing" to reduce Medicare spending, by a 48% to 45% plurality.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576285041082834676.html

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Is this really news? Or, blatant propaganda and spin by the WSJ?

Here is the Wall Street Journal offering a "news" article dripping with spin suggesting that Americans want to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

[TomCADem]

1. "GOP's Medicare problem"

Of course, the WSJ "article" cites "facts" that are directly to those cited in this article in a Florida newspaper.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110426/COLUMNIST/110429633/-1/news?Title=GOP-s-Medicare-problem

Paul Ryan, the GOP budget guru, argues tirelessly that Medicare costs are unsustainable and must be reined in. Not all of his objections to Medicare are fiscal. A piece Ryan wrote last year for The New York Times shows a deep dislike for government-run health care in general and for Medicare in particular.

To Ryan, the choice is between patients "in charge of how their health dollars are spent, as providers compete ... to better serve patients" versus patients at the mercy of "government bureaucrats." In Ryan's simplistic formulation, "patient power will always serve the needs of the people far better than the bureaucrats managing the decline of a government-run system on the verge of bankruptcy."

The problem for Ryan and his fans is that the government bureaucrats they disparage have created a health-care system that's hugely popular. Polls show that even Republicans like it. A whopping 96 percent of adults in a Harris survey said they either "strongly" or "somewhat" favored Medicare. When the Commonwealth Fund measured specifics such as problems with paying medical bills, access to care and quality of care, Medicare beneficiaries reported much higher levels of satisfaction than employees covered by employer-sponsored health insurance.

Republicans thus have a very large problem on their hands. As they seek to dismantle Medicare, they must convince millions of beneficiaries and their families who know from firsthand experience that Medicare works and works well that it ought to be scrapped. Convincing them that Medicare is a failure seems futile. The strategy evidently is to regard current beneficiaries as hopelessly addicted and to sweep initially only those under 55 into the new system.

[Downwinder]

7. Congress, the REAL death panel.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

2. Total ConservaRAT CorpRAT spin. n/t

[madrchsod]

3. murdoch`s new rag....

[Hoosier]

4. note the columnist...

John Fund.
Enough said.

[wilt the stilt]

6. Fund dated

mother and daughter-weirdo

[Enthusiast]

13. Fund is a pure propagandist.

It is his full time job.

[No Elephants]

5. Democrats = "'left?" Is it 1970 again?

[TomCADem]

27. Almost All Democrats Are Left Of Republicans In Congress

Notwithstanding efforts by some who claim that there is no significant difference between Republicans and Democrats.

[tclambert]

8. I oppose the entitlement mentality, where people feel entitled to great wealth they didn't earn,

but only inherited from their parents or grandparents, like the Koch brothers, who inherited Koch industries from their father, Fred, who founded the company in 1940. What did Charles and David Koch ever do to deserve their great wealth? Richard Mellon Scaife inherited great wealth from both his father and mother's side.
Rupert Murdoch (owner of the WSJ) took over the family business when his father died. (To be fair, he expanded the business into a gigantic empire. He did have a big head start, though.)

It's not just that the Republicans fight for the rich, it's mostly the undeserving rich they fight for.

[florida08]

9. LOL..that was so much spin it made me dizzy

Similarly, by 2-to-1 Americans would rather cut spending on programs that benefit them than see their taxes go up. Even when it comes to Medicare spending, respondents in the Times poll say they are "willing" to reduce Medicare spending, by a 48% to 45% plurality.

Funny thing is that's not what we're hearing at the town halls.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/poll-watchers-how-many-americans-support-medicare-cuts/2011/04/11/AFpgC1hE_blog.html

Two polls last week reported very different public reactions to cutting spending on Medicare. In one released Friday by CBS News and The New York Times, less than half — 45 percent — said they were unwilling to cut Medicare to reduce the deficit. But a Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier in the week showed 78 percent opposed to “cutting spending on Medicare” for a similar purpose.


It's how the question is framed and what's in the mind of the voter. Most want Medicare fraud reduced. They want the government to help fund private insurance but they don't want vouchers. What do people under 30 know about these programs except that they're paying into them?

[groundloop]

10. Gotta hand it to them, the damned Publicans are great at propaganda

First off is the word "entitlement". I can't remember exactly when they started using that word, but it's been every bit as effective at framing their position as how they turned "liberal" into a bad word. Medicare and social security are not "entitlements", I've been paying into those systems since I was 16 and will have earned every penny that I get from them when the time comes.

WE need to talk about the tax entitlements being given to big oil, Wall Street, etc. That's what's driving the budget deficit, not the social safety net programs which the Publicans so dearly want to rape and pillage.

[Enthusiast]

11. Just more bullshit propaganda.

Hey, they can manipulate these polls as easy as they change the vote after an election. Don't believe a word they say. THEIR JOB IS LYING.

[66 dmhlt]

12. It'll be the Teapublican talking point for the day

And expect even Matt "I-Luvs-To-Shill-For-Republicans" Lauer to trumpet it this morning, even though it's a CBS/Times poll.

Couple of things:

<1> Fund doesn't even provide a link to the poll (apparently unless you subscribe)

<2> Your fellow DU includes facts in the poll that you WON'T hear from Teapublicans:
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x958556

<3> There is an honest assessment titled "Two Budget Plans, Two Divergent Polls" by the National Journal:
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/04/two-budget-plan.php

<4> And here's the take-home nuggets of the ABC/Washington Post Poll (which the National Journal thinks had better questions):

■ 65 percent of Americans oppose changing Medicare to a system in which the government would give seniors vouchers to buy private insurance

■ 78 percent oppose cuts in Medicare in order to address the federal debt

■ 69 percent oppose cuts in Medicaid

■ 72 percent support achieving debt-reduction by raising taxes on people with household incomes more than $250,000 a year

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/medicare-cuts-proposed-republicans-face-broad-opposition-abc/story?id=13412136

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-84-percent-oppose-ryans-medicare-plan/2011/04/15/AFBMJ4AE_blog.html

[droidamus2]

14. has anybody noticed

I am sure you have that when the Mepublicans talk about 'health care' a la Ron Paul they aren't really talking about how to get the citizens of the US better health care they are talking about how to make sure the health insurance companies continue to exist and make large amounts of money that can be funneled back to the Republicans so they can get reelected. They usually start by mentioning 'health care' but then they go into this screed about how it's all about making 'insurance' more affordable, how 'market forces' and 'competition' will bring down insurance costs. That's insurance costs not health care costs. To them its all about business, surprise, surprise and they don't seem to really give a damn whether those less fortunate have decent health care that won't bankrupt them.

[Enthusiast]

15. John Fund has zero credibility.

He is no different than O'Keefe or Breitbart. Never post another John Fund article on DU. Just don't.

And the WSJ is owned by Murdoch so the entire WSJ is tainted by extremist views.

[Zorra]

18. +1

[Vinca]

16. They probably polled people who can afford subscriptions to the WSJ.

[Enthusiast]

20. I suspect it was something of that nature. nt

[highplainsdem]

22. See reply 19 below, which links to yesterday's GD topic explaining the detailed poll numbers,

which Fund cherrypicked, ignoring all the poll data showing people don't support the Ryan plan.

I saw that WSJ article yesterday, didn't think it worth posting in LBN, but did want to warn people about the right-wing spin they'd see, so I did a very detailed, long OP on this. Which got more than 20 recs, but apparently wasn't seen by people posting in this LBN topic.

Here's a direct link to that GD topic:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x958556

[florida08]

24. I missed it too

but got it now...thanks

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[highplainsdem]

19. I posted about this article yesterday in GD & explained the detailed poll #s disprove the WSJ spin.

Link to that topic, which links to the PDF file with the detailed poll results and lists all the important poll results the WSJ left out:

"Before you see the right-wing spin on the new NY Times/CBS poll, you should know"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x958556

[Lasher]

25. That was a very good OP.

And for that we thank you.

[Hubert Flottz]

21. Rupert's propaganda machine is in high gear.

The WSJ was a rag before Rupert took over, now it's a super rag.

Rupert wants to murder Granny!

[Lasher]

26. Saw him on TV yesterday.

What a total piece of slime.

[sinkingfeeling]

23. At the same time, the headline reads, "Americans depend more on federal aid than ever "?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-04-26-government-payments-economy-medicare.htm

"Americans depended more on government assistance in 2010 than at any other time in the nation's history, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data finds. The trend shows few signs of easing, even though the economic recovery is nearly 2 years old."


Does this point to propagnada or ignorance?