McKinsey Poll on Employers' Likely Moves

As many readers of this blog are probably aware, management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. recently released a poll of employers who provide health-insurance coverage to employees. The findings, which suggested that a substantial number of companies might terminate such coverage, has created a firestorm in policy circles and the political blogosphere. Here are two recent articles, defending and criticizing the McKinsey survey's methodology.

How Americans Obtain Health Insurance (If They Have It)

Gallup reports trend lines in its polling of Americans' reported sources of health insurance (or lack of insurance). The percentage of Americans reporting they have employer-based health insurance has declined gradually over the last few years from approximately 49% to 45%. Insurance via government program (e.g., Medicaid, Medicare) has been edging up and now slightly exceeds one-quarter of the population.

The percentage of Americans who report being uninsured has held steady at slightly over 16% from 2009-2011. Some elements of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (health care reform) have already gone into effect. However, as noted in the above-linked Gallup article, the country's persistent economic difficulties have presumably dampened any gains in health-insurance coverage thus far from the 2010 law.

ACA provisions that are most likely to reduce the ranks of the uninsured -- new mechanisms to purchase health insurance (known as "exchanges"), tax credits for many purchasers, and expansion of Medicaid -- don't go into effect until 2014 (implementation timeline).

What Predicts Attitudes Toward Health Care Reform?

John Sides examines research on how perceptions of fairness and inequity, partisan attitudes, and personal health status appear to predict (or not predict) attitudes toward government health care reform plans (via Pollster).

Rasmussen on Support for Repeal

The Rasmussen poll, which tends to have a Republican-leaning "house effect," is now showing "support for repeal of [health care reform] has fallen below 50%" for the first time since enactment of the legislation on March 23, 2010 (via Daily Kos). Rasmussen has been using the following question wording:

A proposal has been made to repeal the health care bill and stop it from going into effect. Do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose a proposal to repeal the health care bill?

I've always thought the measure to be vague; for example, does "somewhat favor" mean that someone would like parts of the legislation to be repealed, but not others? For what it's worth, though, here is a trend graph I made from percentages listed on Rasmussen's site and a little artistic flourish on my part (you may click on the graph to enlarge it):

There obviously have been fluctuations, and likely will into the future (indeed, support for repeal is back up in the first two May Rasmussen polls; follow Rasmussen's trends here). However, from mid-March to late April, there appears to have been a downward trend in support for repeal.

[Updated May 18, 2011.]

Blumenthal Has One-Year Follow-Up After ACA Passage

Mark Blumenthal reviews current polling on health care reform, now roughly a year after the landmark legislation passed.

A View from Canada

Canadian blogger Oleh Iwanyshyn takes a critical look at polling during the U.S. health care reform debate.

NY Times Summarizes ACA Implementation

The New York Times offers this report-card-type synopsis on how successfully the health care reform law is being implemented throughout the nation and how major constituencies (i.e., insurers, doctors, the public) are reacting. The synopsis touches upon public opinion in only limited ways, but how successfully the law gets put into place in the next few years is likely to affect future public opinion.