Poll: Public supports healthcare reform but unsure what kind

Public support for healthcare reform appears to be getting more muddled, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday.

While there continues to be broad support for some sort of reform, support for specific policy proposals is mixed.

Here’s the Post’s summary graf:

Most respondents are “very concerned” that health-care reform would lead to higher costs, lower quality, fewer choices, a bigger deficit, diminished insurance coverage and more government bureaucracy. About six in 10 are at least somewhat worried about all of these factors, underscoring the challenges for lawmakers as they attempt to restructure the nation’s $2.3 trillion health-care system.

On top of that, more than 80 percent are satisfied with their current healthcare.

But nearly six in 10 believe reform is necessary to bring down rising costs and cover the uninsured.

Nearly four in ten, though, said government reform could do more harm than good.

The Post also breaks down the tricky nature of polling individual proposals:

Survey questions that equate the public option approach with the popular, patient-friendly Medicare system tend to get high approval, as do ones that emphasize the prospect of more choices. But when framed with an explicit counterargument, the idea receives a more tepid response. In the new Post-ABC poll, 62 percent support the general concept, but when respondents were told that meant some insurers would go out of business, support dropped sharply, to 37 percent.

Support for an “individual mandate,” requiring every American to carry health insurance, ranges from 44 percent to 70 percent depending on the specific provisions.

So to sum up, people appear to want healthcare reform, they just don’t know what special policies they support.

There was a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent in the poll.

jeremy.jacobs@digital-staging.thehill.com