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The polls continue to say that roughly half of Americans donât support health reform. A Zogby poll finds that about 51 percent of Americans oppose the Democratic version of health reform; a Quinnipiac University poll reports that 54 percent are unsupportive of Obamaâs plan; a Public Policy Polling survey puts the number of those who oppose at 50 percent.
So what does a sample of New Yorkers in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan think of health care reform and whatâs happened to it? Interviews over the weekend in our non-scientific poll show that people are about as split as the scientific polls show. Some have strong opinions; others have tuned out; and still others say they are unaffected by the all the back-and-forth between the Dems and the Republicans. A few people I interviewed didnât know about the big health care pow-wow on Thursday, even though that topic has consumed stakeholders, interest groups, Internet listservs, and health care reporters for weeks.
âI am not aware of the summit,â said thirty-eight-year-old Liza, who was having her nails done. But then, she had not been very engaged with the debate in the first place. âPersonally I donât think I will be affected by it,â she said. Liza has insurance from her employer, but she declined to say where she works. âThereâs nothing Iâve heard that makes me think I would be.â Hmmm, I thought. Apparently the messages from the president and the pols these many months had not filtered down to her.
Seth, who also wouldnât give his last name, had the same reaction. Seth is twenty-seven and said he is the CEO of a software firm a few blocks away. He told me there were nineteen hours in the day when he wasnât sleeping and he had to devote that time to things higher on his priority listârunning his business, keeping up with technology, and spending time with his wife. âI donât need to have an opinion on everything,â he said. He did admit that he knew very little about the reform debate. At one point, he said Obama was trying democratize health care more like in Canada or France. I wondered if he meant: make it more like socialized systems.
A few minutes later, Seth said that the president was trying to privatize health care, making it so that everyone gets itâbut that that would make the costs go up âsubstantiallyâ because what you pay has to cover more people. âI can only imagine how much,â he said, and then told me about the insurance coverage for his workers. The premiums his company pays are going up 30 percent March 1. We have the perfect demographic, he explained: Most employees are between 28 and 35 and arenât supposed to get sick. Policy wonks say the young, healthy invincibles will keep everyoneâs costs down. Still, Seth said, his workers have had health problems. One employee got cancer; others had babies. For every dollar his company paid in premiums, the insurance broker said $1.03 was paid out for medical expenses.
I stopped in at Flanneryâs Bar to see if some of the patrons would chat. A few did. Leonardo Mojica works as a computer analyst at New York University and started our conversation by saying, âItâs not going to affect me. It might when I get to Medicare or Medicaid.â That wonât be for awhile, since he is just fifty-five. He has had insurance from NYU for twenty years.
Mojica knew about the issues. âIt was a big mistake to take the public option out of the whole package,â he told me. He said he was an independent but usually votes for Dems. (âRepublicans, never!â) Yet he was not happy with the Democrats. âDemocrats are usually chicken,â he explained. He supported Obama, but he was not happy with the presidentâs health care leadership. âHe wanted to placate Republicans too much. Heâs supposed to fight. One of the biggest disappointments is how he has been kow-towing to the please the Republicans. They will never cooperate with him.â Mojica said that if they pass anything, it will be âwatered down.â âI donât see any gains.â
Phil McQuade was on his lunch break. He works for Verizon as a central office technician and has health coverage. The minute I bring up health reform, he says, âI donât agree with it. Thereâs too much pork involved such as the Nebraska deal. I think heâs buying votes.â McQuade, who came from Ireland when he was three years old in 1959, said that the government shouldnât be involved in health care âjust like they shouldnât be involved with cars.â
âThere definitely should be no public option,â he told me. The government shouldnât be selling insurance, McQuade thought, but it should do more to bring down insuranceâs pricesâlike stopping the million dollar salaries of executives.
At first McQuade said he didnât know how reform might affect him. Then he told me he thinks he might have to pay more. âWeâre giving insurance to the wrong people,â he said. Which ones? I asked. âLike illegal aliens,â he replied. I explained that they would not be covered under the bills. âI donât know that,â he said, adding that things are changing fast. âI wouldnât be surprised if they put it back in.â
We talked some about trust, particularly trust in government. I asked McQuade whom he trusted. âMyself,â he said.
Kirsten Semenkewitz was showing hand creams to a customer who had just scrubbed her hands at the soap store where she works as a sales associate. Semenkewitz said she had been loosely following health care. âI donât know the details, but I know what Obama is putting out is not universal health care whatsoever,â she told me. âHeâs not putting it out to appease Republicans. Heâs doing too much to appease the people who paid for his campaign. Thatâs not a good thing in my opinion.â
Sememkewitz, age twenty-three, is also a student at Hunter College. She said she is not sure she would vote for the president again. Has he disappointed you? I asked. âAbsolutely. Heâs a politician so I didnât expect too much, but I did expect a little bit more. I thought heâd at least use some political muscle, but he hasnât.â Semenkewitz said she did not really trust the president on health care or other issues she was concerned about like climate change. âPoliticians and the president are trained to say ambiguous statements so they canât be held accountable,â she added. Then Sememkewitz told me she was scared about the outcome of health reform and not being able to afford care.
Joanna, age fifty-two, manages a shoe and accessory store and had a few minutes to talk. She knows how hard it is to get her family covered. She told me that she paid about ten grand a year for health insurance. Her employer offers health insurance to full timers and contributes toward the premiums. But it doesnât pay for family members, so Joanna pays for her husbandâs coverage. She got her daughter on Child Health Plus, a New York state plan. Their income, she said, was low enough to qualify. Now she is looking for coverage for her son, who is back in college. Itâs tough.
âI donât think health reform would do anything for me because Iâm insured,â she explained. âMedical insurance should be a percentage of your salary. You pay a certain amount thatâs affordable. Joanna was not up on the arcane stuff about affordability buried in the bill, but her thinking was in sync with some of the bill drafters. She knew that under reform insurance companies would have to take everyone, but she also knew about the one-year waiting period for pre-existing conditions in New York, a state that also requires insurance companies to take everyone. âWhat are you supposed to do in the meantime?â she asked, and wondered if the federal bills would be like that. She also thought that her fifty-five-year-old husband could go on Medicare, and was surprised to learn he could not.
She admitted that she had lost interest in the health care debate after the Massachusetts election in January. We talked a bit about the presidentâs leadership on health care. âHe hasnât really said what he wants to do, and thatâs the most frustrating part.â The president, she said, âis always caring too much about the Republicans. For me Obama was refreshing. I went for the whole idea of moving forward. I didnât expect miracles, but itâs discouraging. Itâs all about politics. Except health care really hits home for a lot of people.â
Our takeaway: The cost of care and insurance looms large as a concern even if people already have health coverage. The pols have inspired little confidence that that will change.
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