Health Landscape Not Much Different Than When Clinton Tried

November 6, 2009 8:20 AM | | Comments (0)

A CNN poll taken Oct. 30-Nov. 1 shows an eerie similarity between public opinion now on the Obama administration's plans to overhaul the nation's health care system and the way sentiment looked when the Clinton administration tried to make similar changes in the mid 1990s.

Obama gets slightly worse marks for trying to cooperate with Republicans than President Clinton received in September of 1995. People now are evenly divided 49 percent to 49 percent over whether the president has done enough to reach out to Republicans on the health care issue. The same poll in 1995 found that President Clinton was seen as a bit more cooperative with the opposition 51 percent to 38 percent.

Republicans 14 years ago weren't seen as any more cooperative than they are now. In the latest poll, as in the one in 1995, 31 percent of the respondents said the GOP was cooperating. But now there's a slight uptick in how many people see them as uncooperative, 67 percent, versus 57 percent in 1995.

Most telling, perhaps, is that public opinion has flipped in its support for the White House plan, now opposed by 53 percent and favored by 45 percent. That, too, is similar to the mid-1990s, when a CNN poll in July 1995 found health care overhaul was opposed by 55 percent and favored by 40 percent.

The CNN poll was conducted by Opinion Research Corp. and was based on telephone interviews with 1,018 adults nationwide. It carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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Categories: CNN

Tags: Health

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