TX-Sen, TX-32: Hutchison, Sessions: Out Of Touch and Wrong On Healthcare Reform

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is the latest Texas Republican who has demonstrated how out of touch she and the rest of her party are when it comes to support for real healthcare reform with a robust public option.
To review, the latest CBS News/New York Times poll shows that 65 percent of the American people support a real public option as part of healthcare reform (including a plurality of REPUBLICANS). That fact seems to have been lost on Hutchison, who's trying to demonstrate her right-wing credentials as part of her campaign for governor in next year's Republican primary against incumbent Rick Perry.
Here's part of the senator's statement that appears on Hutchison's campaign web site:

"I received nearly 1.25 million petitions from Americans including 165,000 Texans who object to a government take over of health care. The President needs to stop and listen. People are sending a powerful message: we want choice, access, and affordability. I hoped that President Obama would have heeded the people’s wishes and announced in his speech that he was willing to wipe the slate clean and abandon the public option. But instead of new ideas the President is repackaging the same bad policies and continuing to promote a government takeover of health care. President Obama’s proposal will increase the size of our government and shrink patients’ choices. It will still drive up taxpayers’ costs and deteriorate our nation’s quality of care. President Obama’s government run health care plan needs to be thrown in the shredder!"

The repeated claim that what President Obama has proposed is "government-run health care" is an outright lie that has been rejected by the American people in poll after poll (with the current CBS News/New York Times survey being the latest). The real question is this: Why are the for-profit insurance companies that have been pushing this canard are so afraid of competition from a not-for-profit government-run entity that will be supported by users' premiums, not taxpayer dollars.
In Texas, public options in post-secondary education (like the University of Texas and Texas A&M systems) sure haven't prevented private institutions like SMU and Rice from providing attractive alternatives that have helped them garner a good number of students.
In the world of package deliveries, the presence of the government-run U.S. Postal Service hasn't prevented two private companies, FedEx and UPS, from gaining large shares of the market with attractive and customer-friendly products that have enabled both to be able to deliver millions of packages daily across the United States and around the world.
If these private education institutions and package delivery companies can do well against public entities, why can't private insurance companies if they offered consumer-friendly and cost-efficient products that don't deny care because of pre-existing conditions or because an insured party gets sick or injured?
Besides being proved totally false when it comes to her claims of public opposition to healthcare reform and what it is (and isn't), Hutchison, like the rest of the Republican gang, is also out of touch when it comes to the facts about the cost of legislation that DOES include a public option.
Reports Congress Daily on House legislation that does include the public option, quoting the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office:

In a bid to wrangle concessions from the Blue Dog Coalition on healthcare reform, House leaders Thursday released CBO estimates for liberals' preferred version of the public option that show $85 billion more in savings than for the version the Blue Dogs prefer.

What part of this statement doesn't Kay Bailey Hutchison understand?
Hutchison may think the teabagging town-hall rabble rousers who tried to disrupt meetings about the issue constitute a majority of the American people, but if this latest CBS News/New York Times survey serves as any indication, Hutchison and fellow Texas Republicans like Rep. Pete Sessions (TX-32) are the ones who are out of touch with the American people and even members of their own party.
Here's Sessions commenting on President Obama's recent healthcare reform speech to Congress:

“Tonight, President Obama launched another prime time sales pitch for a government-run health care product that the American people have already undeniably rejected."

If this is the best job Hutchison and Sessions (who, I am ashamed to say, represents my congressional district) can do in interpreting the will of the American people, they should seek other employment fast. They, and the rest of the Republican cabal, are the ones who are out of touch and are trying to keep in place a system that has failed the American people badly and has denied needed care to those who needed it the most.

Poll: Despite Obama's Decline, Public Option Support Still Strong

If healthcare reform is in big trouble, why is the public option still popular?
Check out this latest Research 2000 poll (for Daily Kos).
Here's part of what the poll is reporting:

Do you favor or oppose creating a government-administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans?
Favor Oppose Not Sure
All 58 34 8

Dem 81 12 7
Rep 26 69 5
Ind 57 33 10

Northeast 69 22 9
South 47 46 7
Midwest 61 31 8
West 59 33 8
The public option remains popular, by a nearly 3-2 margin., Seems like people like the idea of competition in the insurance market, that would help lower premiums and keep currently unaccountable insurance companies honest.
What's more, the public option is favored by over a quarter of self-identified Republicans, which is more "bipartisanship" than you'll ever see in DC. And if you look at the regional crosstabs, support for the public option would be even higher if it wasn't for the South, were birtherism and Obama derangement syndrome is at its highest.

And this is the same poll that saw our president's poll take a bit of a tumble. So much for the myth that Democrats are tanking because of "liberalism."
The real reason is the lack of progress on healthcare reform and the reports about the possibility of some watered down version of the same getting passed without any real public option.
And Markos has this warning if real healthcare reform doesn't get done while Democrats pass a watered-down version:

Opposing the public option is electoral poison in every region of the country except the South, while both Democrats and Independents are willing to punish opponents of the public option at the ballot box.
Democrats have a national electoral mandate, they have public opinion on their side, they have dominant majorities in both chambers of Congress, and they have the White House.
No wonder Independents and Democrats are abandoning the Democratic Party.

We hired Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress to get things done, especially on healthcare. We didn't hire them to kowtow with Republicans and other monied interests to jam down our throats a semblance of reform but not the real thing.
We expect results, and anything else will result in severe electoral consquences in both 2010 and 2012.

Gallup: Obama UP 1 to 55 percent!

So much for President Obama's poll numbers slipping into the sunset. Gallup has Obama up one to 55 percent.

How Much Is Opposition To Healthcare Reform Built On Lies? ABC News/WaPo Poll Doesn't Answer

Watch all the cherry picking that will be done by those in the media looking for trends against healthcare reform.
On the heels of a SurveyUSA Poll indicating 77 percent support for the choice of a public option, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows an erosion of support for not only the public option, but President Obama himself and how poorly he and those around him have handled the battle for healthcare reform.
Here's an exerpt from the Washington Post story on the ABC News/WaPo poll:

Disapproval of Obama's handling of the health-care issue reached 50 percent in the new poll, the highest of his presidency, and 42 percent of those surveyed say they now "strongly disapprove" of the way he is dealing with his main domestic priority. Views of the president's actions on reform have dropped most sharply among seniors and independents.

The story then goes to discuss its public option findings:

The poll was completed just as a new debate about a public health insurance option erupted after administration officials appeared to signal their willingness to jettison the proposal as part of an eventual compromise. White House officials later insisted that there had been no change in their support for the public option as they sought to reassure Democrats furious about what they regarded as an administration cave-in.
In the survey, 52 percent of Americans said they favor the government's creation of a new health insurance plan to compete with private insurers, while 46 percent are opposed. That is a big shift from late June, when 62 percent backed the notion and 33 percent opposed it.
The drop in support for the public option has been particularly steep among political independents, the closely watched group so critical to the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 and Obama's victory last year. Two months ago, independents supported the public option by a 2 to 1 ratio. Now, 50 percent are in favor, and 47 percent are opposed.
Seniors have also become decidedly negative toward the proposal: In June, seniors were evenly split on the plan, but now a majority strongly oppose the idea.

There is one BIG problem with the ABC News/Washington Post poll: It fails to deal with the REASONS for the opposition to healthcare reform.
It also fails to check into WHERE those surveyed got their health insurance reform information from.
The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal expanded on that, as Rachel Maddow so brilliantly reported earlier in the week:

And King One Eye in Daily Kos expanded on Maddow's report further:

new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll featured on the Rachel Maddow show included questions centered on the recent health care debate. What made this poll unique was that four of the questions sought to ascertain whether the respondents believed statements that were known to be untrue. Here are the results broken out by which news sources the respondents favored:

On Health Care Reform, Those Who Believe That It Will... MSNBC/CNN Viewers Fox News Viewers
Give Coverage To Illegal Immigrants: 41% 72%
Lead To A Government Takeover: 39% 79%
Pay For Abortions: 40% 69%
Stop Care To The Elderly: 30% 75%

Let me repeat: These are statements that are known to be untrue, yet Fox News viewers believe them in overwhelming numbers. It's bad enough that approximately 40% of MSNBC/CNN viewers believe these myths, but clearly Fox is producing an audience of vastly misinformed, cultural illiterates.
The problem with having a national news organization that is polluting the population with lies about critical public issues is that it makes democracy impossible. And that, of course, may be the goal of Fox and its corporate overseers. Democracy is such a messy affair, what with all the people voting and stuff. If your objective is to manipulate government, you can't get very far if voters are actually familiar with the issues and are capable of making sound judgments. So Fox News found it necessary to invent a platform of fake agendas to create fear and then purposefully indoctrinate their predominantly Republican and southern viewers to believe in them.

It sure makes you wonder about the validity of the negative ABC News/Washington Post findings on the public option since that survey did not delve into what folks believed or didn't believe about the proposal.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll also failed to take into account discontent with Obama because of his failure (and especially that of those around him) to enunciate a clear vision of what they wanted from the start and sticking to it.
Notice also the timing of the ABC News/Washington Post poll-- it was taken when both Obama and his HHS secretary-- Kathleen Sebelius-- were giving signals that they were willing to ditch the public option if that's what it took to pass healthcare reform.
That would make anyone, including me, wonder about the commitment of someone to stand by his principles and fight for them even if it meant costing them legislation or popularity points.
Given also the findings of the NBC News/WSJ poll, it's a big mystery why the ABC News/Washington Post surveyers didn't ask their respondents what they believed about the president's healthcare reform proposal and how they'd feel once they were explained what the proposal really was.
In the light of something I've heard Chuck Todd of NBC said, that once folks were explained what the Obama proposal really was (with the public option), 53 percent would support it, it's a mystery why the ABC/Washington Post poll didn't do the same.
The corporatists opposing healthcare reform may be gleeful about the poll, but I wonder what they'll feel when their house of lies is fully exposed and the American people revolt against them because of how they've been misled.
And when that reality hits, watch the flimsy house of lies crash before us.

Obama's Popularity Holds Steady Despite Lying GOP, Insurance Company Attacks

For those bent on cherry picking only for the polls that reflect negatively on President Obama and Democrats in Congress, you will find no solace with this poll.
According to the latest Research2000 poll posted in Daily Kos:

Given that the dominant story in the public conversation over the past week has been the health care townhall meetings, it is not completely unreasonable to suggest that the protest tactic employed by the opponents of reform (and at least tacitly cheered on by Congressional Republicans) has not had the desired effect of cratering Democratic numbers and resurrecting Republican ones.
Quite the opposite, this weeks shows a continuation of two trends apparent over the last month: a slow but palpable recovery in support for Congressional Democrats, and the perpetuation of a long slide in support for Congressional Republicans.

The finding shows President Obama's popularity still steady at 60 percent while the Republican slide continues.
The finding also confirms the latest Gallup finding I discussed that had our president's approval numbers at 63 percent.
If anything, these numbers prove that the rabble rousers the Fox propaganda channel, Republicans, and their insurance companies represent only a fringe of American society and not the mainstream when it comes to healthcare reform or anyone else.
It's time CNN and others stop legitimizing the right-wing goons and rabble rousers and expose them for what they are-- a fringe group that's clearly in the minority on healthcare reform despite the heavy dose of lies and disinformation they have unleashed against it.

Reports about President's slumping poll numbers greatly exaggerated

So much for the media mime about the President's free-falling poll numbers. Check this out.