Maggie's Farm

Democratic Congressmen and Senators should think twice about whether they'd rather have an angry wife by lining up for Pelosi and Reid.

In a recent poll of women, Obamacare is rejected by most women.  This is important because there are more female than male voters, because women are usually more involved with and sensitive to medical coverage, and because women are most influential in making decisions about medical coverage.

Although John Hinderaker’s conclusion is telling that the various ObamaCare proposals from Congressional Democrats all add up to socialized medicine, the rejection of ObamaCare in this poll is even high among Democrat women.  The poll identifies political leanings, but the questions are not ideological.  Practical and personal concerns are polled, and are primary over ideology.

After several decades of experience in health insurance brokerage and consulting, I can tell you that women are far more concerned and demanding as to their coverage.  At least before middle-age, women have more health care issues and make more visits to their doctors.  Women  are most often the decisive influence on the choice made in the workplace, including that most HR people are female, and the wives of the senior executives or owners make their desires quite clear to their husbands. For example, try to separate a woman from her favored gynecologist or their children from their favored pediatrician and the broker usually faces  a fight, the women willing to even pay higher premiums to retain their favorite personal doctors.

A conservative-leaning organization, The Independent Women’s Forum, hired an independent pollster to question in depth what appears to be a representative national sample of female voters about their preferences in the health care legislation debates.  The poll analysis is here, and more details of the questions and responses are here.

Some of the key poll results:

75% want few to no changes to their own healthcare (40% ?? be modified, but mostly left as is; 35% ?? be left as?is) while 19% want it to undergo dramatic overhaul.

67% of women agree with the following statement: “I would prefer that United States Senators and Member of Congress not support poorly?crafted or rushed healthcare legislation. It is more important to get it done right than to get it done fast.”

When asked how much should be spent on healthcare reform, most put the acceptable amounts in the thousands (16%), millions (24%), or billions (16%). Only 10% say that $1 trillion (5%) or more than $1 trillion (5%) should be spent on healthcare reform.

66% of women describe the quality of their health insurance as “excellent” or “good.” 74% use the same terms to describe the quality of their healthcare. 29% say their health insurance is “fair” or “poor” while 24% say the same of their healthcare.

By a margin of 64%?27% of women would “rather have private health insurance than a government?run health insurance plan.”

55% think that the CBO projection of $829 billion is an underestimation of how much will ultimately be spent on healthcare reform. 17% think the figure is too high and 12% think the guess is about right.

46% of women predict that “increased federal involvement in healthcare” will result in more doctors leaving the practice of medicine while 12% think it will cause more to join; 34% think the ranks will remain unchanged.

58% disagree and 29% agree that “more federal involvement in healthcare will improve the relationships members of my family have with their doctors.”

51% of women think more federal involvement will cause declines in the quality of healthcare they and their families receive; 15% feel it will lead to improvements; and 28% believe the quality will remain unchanged.

Among Independents, 73% would be less likely to support a “candidate for Congress knowing he or she favored moving people from their private healthcare plans to government?run healthcare plans.”

Among Independents, 47% would be less likely to support a candidate “knowing he or she supports this new $829 billion healthcare bill,” 31% would be more likely.

Among small business owners, 65% trust that the private sector does a better job of providing choice in healthcare; 25% think the federal government does.

Among small business owners, 56% believe the private sector can offer lower costs while ensuring high quality healthcare; 36% give the federal government the advantage.

Majorities of voters in all age, regional, and educational attainment cohorts believed the private sector to be superior when it comes to providing choice in healthcare. Pluralities of selfidentified Democrats (45%) and liberals (49%) agreed, as well as majorities of self?identified Independents (64%), Republicans (81%), moderates (54%), and conservatives (74%).

Two?thirds of women objected to government paying for abortions in the healthcare bill, including majorities of women of all ages, races, regions, marital and parental statuses, and political parties (55% of self?identified Democrats, 66% of Independents, and 84% of Republicans). Even 39% of “prochoicers” qualified their views with their unwillingness to pay for it.

When informed that “one of the reasons why the deficit is expected to decrease is because the federal government is going to decrease how much it spends on Medicare,” 77% of women deemed this tactic a “mostly bad” one. Just 13% considered this approach a “mostly good” idea. Majorities of women of all ages, races, regions, marital and parental statuses, incomes, educational attainments, political parties, ideologies, and regions considered these cuts to Medicare to be a “bad idea.” At least 70% of women in every age cohort not benefitting from Medicare rejected this.