Poll Tracker

Pluralities of Americans say President Obama's plan to overhaul the health care system is a bad idea (42 percent) that will make health care worse (40 percent) and more expensive (47 percent), according to an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll taken Oct. 22-25.

Then there's another plurality: the 45 percent who say it should be passed anyway if the alternative is to keep the health care system as it is now. And 45 percent say setting up a government-run health insurance plan is "extremely important" to provide competition to private health insurance.

The margins in these poll findings are thin in places. To the 42 percent who think the president's health plan is a bad idea, 38 percent say it's a good idea. While little seems to crack through the 50-percent barrier, some aspects of the plan have considerably more acceptance than opposition. The 40 percent who think quality will decline are 19 percentage points ahead of those who think it will improve, and the 47 percent who say costs will go up are 34 percentage points ahead of those who say they will go down.