Health care for all?

U.S. Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the country's

health care system, and surprisingly to some, appear ready to stand behind one of the most controversial proposals Congress is considering - a government-run health insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.

A new poll, conducted by New York Times/CBS News, also found that most Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance. And they believe that the government could do a better job of keeping health-care costs down than insurers in the private sector.

Yet the survey also revealed considerable unease about the impact of heightened government involvement, with regard to both the economy and the quality of respondents' own medical care.

While 85 percent of respondents said the health care system needed to be "fundamentally changed" or "completely rebuilt," 77 percent said they were "very" or "somewhat" sa-tisfied with the existing quality of their own care.

Across a number of questions, the poll detected substantial support for a greater government role in health care, a position generally identified with the Democratic Party.

Senator Chris Dodd (right) supports a public option, and he firmly believes that bringing down healthcare costs without it is impossible. When asked which party was more likely to improve health care, only 18 percent of respondents chose the Republicans, compared with 57 percent who favored the Democrats' ability to do so. Even one in four Republicans said the Democrats would do better.

The national telephone survey, conducted from June 12 to 16, found that 72 percent of those questioned supported a government administered insurance plan — something similar to Medicare for those under 65 — that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed. Republicans in Congress have fiercely criticized the proposal as an unneeded expansion of government that might evolve into a system of nationalized health coverage and eventually lead to the rationing of care.

But the poll revealed broad bipartisan backing for the proposal, with half of those who call themselves Republicans saying they would support a public plan, along with nearly threefourths of Independents and almost 9 in 10 Democrats.

Mr. Obama and many Democrats have argued that a public plan would be "essential," in the President's words, to "keep insurance companies honest." But Obama has also signaled a willingness to compromise to garner Republican support, perhaps by establishing member-owned insurance cooperatives instead.

On June 21, 2009, in an interview with ABC's "This Week," U.S. Senate members Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Graham indicated that a government-run health care would not pass in the Senate because it would be "devastating for this country."

"The last thing in the world I think Democrats and Republicans are going to do at the end of the day is create a government-run health care system where you've got a bureaucrat stan-ding in between the patient and the doctor," said Graham.Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd supports a public option, and he firmly believes that bringing down healthcare costs without it is impossible "if there isn't some competition out there to drive down the overall costs - costs [which] have gone up 86 percent since 1996."

"The American average working family can't afford this, Dodd continued, "For a family of four now, it's $12,000. We're being told in 20 years, it could be half the gross income of a family spent on health care premiums. That is just unacceptable."

In a press conference on June 23, President Obama stated that he often gets letters - sometimes two or three a day - from families who don't have health insurance, are going bankrupt, are on the brink of losing their insurance, have deductibles that are so high that, even with insurance, they end up with $50,000, $100,000 worth of debt, and are at risk of losing their homes.

"That has to be

part of reform, making sure that, even if you've got health insurance now, you are not worried that, when you lose your job or your employer decides to change policies that somehow you're going to be out of luck."

The President went on to describe the case of a woman he had met in Green Bay, Wisconsin, 36 years old, who underwent a double mastectomy, but the breast cancer has now moved into her bones.

The woman has two small children and a husband with a job. They had health insurance coverage, but they're still $50,000 in debt.

"Those are the things that I'm prioritizing," he affirmed.Obama described the public plan as an important tool to discipline insuran-ce companies. "Let's have a system, the same way that federal employees do, the same way that members of Congress do, where we call it an 'exchange', but you can call it a marketplace, where essentially, you've got a whole bunch of different plans," he explained."There is no doubt that we must preserve what is best about our health care system, and that means allowing Americans who like their doctors and their health care plans to keep them. But unless we fix what is broken in our current system, everyone's health care will be in jeopardy."

Sources: New York Times/CBS News poll, ABC News "This Week" transcript and Congressional Quarterly Transcript