I keep hearing republicans say that American’s are against health care reform. I know this doesn’t represent my view. Does it represent yours? This feels alarmingly similar to the beginning of the Iraq war where the media and politicians kept stating how there was wide-spread support for the war, but I was hard-pressed to talk to very many who were.

I read an article by Steven Kull on public support of health care reform. He points out how republicans are riding their public mandate platform, but he also questions the validity of their claims. In fact, he points out that of the people who say in polls that they don’t approve of Obama’s health care proposal, it’s because it doesn’t do enough. He says this:

Similar to other polls, a Feb. 26-28 Ipsos/McClatchy poll first found that 41 percent said they favored the health care plan under consideration, while 47 percent were opposed. A follow-on question, though, found that many of those opposed to it (17 percent of the whole sample) did so because it did not go far enough. Only 25 percent aligned with the Republican position by complaining that it goes too far.

Mr. Kull explains how this means that, “25% say the health care plan goes too far, 17% say it does not go far enough (some are still disappointed over the removal of the public option), while 41% say it is about right.”

I’ve taken my own informal poll of people I know and the majority of them are for taking some action on health care reform. I know a few people who fall in the group who think the bill goes too far. I know a lot of people who say the bill doesn’t go far enough. There’s a lot of disappointment that the public option seems to be all but abandoned in an effort to appease republicans (who appear like they’re not going to be happy with anything anyway). And there are the rest who realize there needs to be some changes and they think this bill is acceptable.

Now you can reply to this purely scientific (not!) poll!