A Second Look | Lots of Polls Out There, Only One That Counts

via WaPo Poll: Majority Wants Public Option More Than Bipartisanship For Its Own Sake | The Plum Line
The Plum Line | Greg Sargent | 10/19/2009, 05:14 PM EST

Okay, this is important: The new Washington Post poll finally asks people about their cravings for bipartisanship in the right way, and its finding really challenges the conventional wisdom that people want bipartisan health care compromise at all costs.

Everyone talks poll results these days. Polls are being waved around to garner support for this or that. I yawn at polls. I turn my back on polls. I laugh at polls to their face. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Unless it is election year. Then I anxiously snatch and gobble up every poll that comes close enough to my reach.

But, it is not an election year although you couldn’t tell it from all the speculation about 2010 – there will be a conservative ”wave”, there won’t be a wave, blah blah blah. No, this is not 2010, but the big pollsters have to stay employed and so they are being hired to poll the hottest issues.

For what it is worth, this particular poll asks the question “Do you want a public option included even if it means Dems only, or do you want a bipartisan bill that doesn’t?”

Specifically: A majority wants a Dem-only bill rather than a bipartisan one if the Dem-only one includes a public insurance option and the bipartisan one doesn’t. A majority of Independents wants the same. From the internals:

Which of these would you prefer –- (a plan that includes some form of government-sponsored health insurance for people who can’t get affordable private insurance, but is approved without support from Republicans in Congress); or

(a plan that is approved with support from Republicans in Congress, but does not include any form of government-sponsored health insurance for people who can’t get affordable private insurance)?

Prefer government-sponsored insurance: 51%

Prefer Republican support: 37%

It is another poll that supports the public option. There have been many. And for what? If polls really mattered then there would be no debate over the public option. And what of their impact? Do you think that someone is going to burst into the conference room where the Senate compromise bill on health reform is being negotiated and exclaim that opinion for the public option among white working class men ages 30 to 55 has ticked up a point according to so-and-so? Do you? It is a ridiculous scenario.

And would they even care? I doubt it. Here’s why, from The Washington Post:

“This bill is being written in the dark of night,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), adding that “the president ought to keep his promise to the American people and open this process up.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) talks with Nancy-Ann DeParle, President Obama's top healthcare advisor.

The committee in that dark, smoke-filled, back room is made up of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) who chairs the event and has mentioned in passing in a wishy-washy manner as he normally does, that he favors some kind of public option, but…. And at the table are Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate HELP Committee who passed a bill earlier this summer with a strong public option, and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee who passed a bill last week with more drama than necessary and in front of cameras, happily flushed the public option down the toilet. So the battle lines are drawn, even-Steven.

But wait, there’s more!

The three men will be joined by top aides as well as by members of President Obama’s health-care team, led by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Since when did Emanuel become the White House expert on health care? He’s not. He’s there for muscle.

That is why the group also includes former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who is the Health and Human Services Secretary and Nancy-Ann DeParle, Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform – the White House Healthcare Czar. All these folks huddled together Monday night in a leadership office (smoke-filled back room) and discussed the “public option, affordability, and other options” a spokesman for Reid said according to TPM.

But if you want to study the results of a poll of possible political illiterates who tell the pollster anything to get them off the phone, then knock yourself out. As for me, here is the only poll on the subject of health care reform that really matters:

Senator Reid – for or against the public option depending on who he’s talking to.
Senator Dodd – for the public option. Period.
Senator Baucus – privately for the public option, but strongly insists that they have to get 60 votes and cannot do so with the public option included. (Cows to the insurance industry.)
Rahm Emanuel – Obama’s mouthpiece. Obama wants the public option but is not willing to demand it.
Secretary Sebelius – involved in a media siht-storm in August, but supports Obama’s position that the public option is needed to provide competition, but is not “the most important element of the reform package”.
Director DeParle – deftly moves behind the scenes to shore up support for the public option for the President, but backs his policy (see above).

I count one for the public option, one against, and four waiting for their cell phones to vibrate.