What Polls Say About Our Attitude Toward Health Reform and Mental Illness

What did the politician say after bumping his head while walking along a sidewalk as he waved to his constituents?   “I never look at the poles.”

Whether political leaders admit to looking at the polls or not, when you look beyond the headlines some current polls are saying a lot about how people feel about health and mental health policy issues. 

In the spirit of post-State of the Union bipartisanship, let’s hope that President Obama and Congressional leaders use three recent polls to listen to us about health reform, and to educate us about mental illness.

First, this is what the President and members of Congress will hear if they listen to what people are telling pollsters about the health reform law.

• We like a number of the elements of health reform, and don’t want them repealed.
• We’re not afraid that health reform will affect our existing health coverage.
• We don’t think the current law went too far.

The headlines from three January polls suggest that we remain divided about the reform law, with slightly more opposing it than favoring it. 

A Rasmussen survey found that 53% of voters favor repealing the law and 43% do not.  In the most recent ABC News/Washington Post Poll, 50% said they opposed the health reform law versus 45% who favored it.  An AP-GfK poll found the public evenly split on the new law, with 41% saying they opposed it and 40% saying they favored it. 

But when we listen beyond the headlines, we hear a different voice. 

In the AP-GfK Poll, only 26% supported repealing the law in its entirety.  An earlier Rasmussen poll also found a minority for full repeal of the law – 39%. In the ABC News/Washington Post Poll, 18% said that they favored total repeal. 

Support for full repeal isn't very high, and the reason is that we like many parts of the new law.  In the AP-GfK poll, the public supported by 50%-34% the prohibition on insurers denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions (such as cancer, mental illness, diabetes, and heart disease), and by 59%-34% the prohibition on insurers cancelling coverage because someone becomes sick.

We're also not afraid that the law is going to have an adverse effect on insurance we have and like.  In the Rasmussen poll, only 34% said that they thought the law was likely to force them to change their existing coverage.  

There are also a lot of people who think that the law should go farther.  In the ABC Poll, one in four said that the reason they opposed the law was because it didn’t go far enough.  Over half of those who supported it agreed with them, also favoring a reform law that would go farther than the current one does. 

source: ABC News/Wash Post Poll 1/11

These are a lot of numbers to absorb all at once, but the bottom line is pretty straightforward, and paints a far different picture from the headline.  35% said the law went too far, 19% said it was just right, and a slight plurality – 38% - said it didn’t go far enough. 

Politicians who ignore this message do so at their own peril. 

Second, here is why the President and members of Congress need to provide leadership in educating us about mental illness in the aftermath of the Tucson tragedy.

• We believe erroneously that mental illness causes violence. 

Some people with mental illness commit violent acts, but mental illness is not usually the reason.  One quarter of our population has a diagnosable mental illness each year, and this group is no more likely to be violent than the other three quarters.  Substance abuse (but not substance abuse treatment), juvenile detention, physical abuse, and past history of violence are predictors of future violent behavior, but mental illness is not. 

We need leaders who are willing to speak that truth to us.    

As was noted by researchers at the University of Tulsa in 2008, media reporting on events like the Tucson shooting makes a difference in how people react to the event, contributes to misperceptions about people with mental illness, and deflects attention away from the actual context of violent acts.  

Leaders need to speak up before our responses to violence do more harm than good.

In the ABC News/Washington Post Poll, 83% said that they would support increasing federal funding to add people treated for mental illness to the federal gun registry in an effort to prevent them from buying guns, and 71% said that they would support this for people treated for substance abuse.

source: ABC News/Wash Post Poll 1/11

We are so scared of mental illness that 83% of us would waste precious tax dollars creating a registry that would violate the confidentiality of one quarter of our population while doing nothing to address the real causes of violence in our society.

That’s hard to understand, but I guess we all bump into polls sometimes and come up rubbing our heads.

If you like this blog, become a follower or subscribe to it, and help get the word out by sharing it with friends and associates!