Guys. If you look at a CNN, NY Times or Fox, NPR ect... poll you are gonna get different numbers every time. Gallup currently has the best reputation as a polling company. This comes from my college classes. Otherwise you might as well split the difference between the various media outlets.

Six in 10 say Obama's proposal, if enacted, would not achieve his goals of expanding coverage to nearly all Americans without raising taxes on the middle class or lowering the quality of health care. For the first time, a majority disapprove of the way he's handling health care

In the most current poll it looks like many do not have any cofidence in what it will achieve if passed.

PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans are skeptical that President Obama's healthcare plan will be able to accomplish all he intends -- to expand coverage to nearly all Americans without raising taxes on middle-class Americans or affecting the quality of care. Thirty-eight percent believe his plan will achieve all of these goals, while 60% do not think it will
http://www.gallup.com/poll/122969/Many-Americans-Doubt-Costs-Benefits-Healthcare-Reform.aspx

Despite the fact that half of Americans support the idea of new healthcare legislation, many fewer are convinced that President Obama's healthcare reform plan can expand coverage and maintain quality while not increasing middle-class taxes, and that the plan can be paid for mostly through cost savings in the existing healthcare system.
The poll suggests that support could drop if Americans come to believe the middle class will be asked to bear an increased burden in terms of higher taxes, higher medical costs, or diminished quality in order to expand healthcare coverage to those who currently lack it.
With 50% of Americans backing healthcare reform in principle, it is unclear whether the president has enough of a public mandate at this point to convince reluctant members of Congress to vote for healthcare reform. Equally unclear is whether public support for healthcare reform will grow or decrease in the coming weeks as more details of the plan are hammered out in Congress. But as Congress continues to do its work, the president and other supporters of healthcare reform have an opportunity to continue making their case to Americans, and to allay some of the public's doubts about what their vision of reform would accomplish and at what cost http://www.gallup.com/poll/122969/Many-Americans-Doubt-Costs-Benefits-Healthcare-Reform.aspx

Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to an average of $13,375 annually for family coverage this year, with employees on average paying $3,515 and employers paying $9,860, according to a new survey.

The benchmark 2009 Employer Health Benefits Survey, released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust, found that family premiums rose about 5 percent in 2009. That’s more than general inflation, which fell 0.7 percent, and workers’ wages, rising 3.1 percent, during the same period.

Since 1999, premiums have gone up 131 percent. That’s far more than than workers’ wages, up 38 percent, or inflation, up 28 percent, over the same time period.

The survey found that 60 percent of firms offered health benefits to workers in 2009, but the smaller the firm, the less likely it is to offer health benefits. It found just 46 percent of the smallest employers, who have three to nine workers, offer health benefits.

Among those firms offering benefits, 21 percent report they reduced the scope of health benefits or increased cost sharing due to the economic downturn, and 15 percent report they increased the worker’s share of the premium.

The survey further reveals that a growing number of workers who are covered by their employer are facing high deductibles in their plans in addition to contributing to the premiums for their coverage.

In 2009, 22 percent of covered workers must pay at least $1,000 out of pocket annually for single coverage before their plan will pay a share of their health care bills, up from 18 percent last year.

Now in its 11th year, the survey is a joint project of the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust, an affiliate of the American Hospital Association.

It was conducted between January and May and included 3,188 randomly selected, non-federal public and private firms with three or more employees.

It's really a shame that those opposed to health care reform have to lie about it in order to scare some of those who need it the most into believing that it would deny them care, if people had the facts they could make an informed decision, death panels, rationing are just two of the many lies circulated by those who are in bed with the health care industry

Why would they have the opinion that the plan would raise taxes when Obama is standing before the world stating that it won't and the CBO is backing him up?

Prove it... don't just say it... PROVE IT

Republicans have held the presidency for 20 of the last 28 years

Republicans have held control of the congress for 14 of the last 16 years

In the same period, our national debt has gone from under $ 2 trillion to over $ 11 trillion....

The American Medical Association announces 76% of U.S. physicians are in favor of Obama's health care plan including the public option...

Here's the problem the administation is facing. First of all the president came out and said health care reform would provide coverage to more people at a higher level and would not cost more. After the CBO came out and shot that claim down the president lost a lot of credibility on the issue. The second problem for the administration and democrats in general is current plans being considered takes 100 billion dollars out of Medicare Advantage. 11 million seniors are enrolled in that plan. They like, they'll see benefit reductions, they're mad, and they vote in higher numbers than other demographic groups. So the polls don't accurately reflect the opposition to reform. Look at this way. Who's more likely to vote in 2010? The 25 year old who got all caught up in Yes We Can or a mad as heck senior.

Do you have sources for 100,ooo billion taken from Medicare Advantage?

maybe you could direct me to the right page

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail

http://www.politico.com/static/PPM110_090925_document2.html

More than 10 million seniors enrolled in an enhanced, private version of Medicare known as Medicare Advantage - including 175,000 in Massachusetts - could see their plans shrink or be replaced with traditional coverage under the health care overhaul plans proposed by Democrats in Congress.

Democrats want to cut Medicare Advantage by more than $120 billion over 10 years. It could leave seniors with fewer boutique Medicare options offered through private insurance companies or with private plans that offer fewer of the extra benefits such plans provide.

Republicans have seized on Medicare Advantage cuts to accuse President Obama of fudging the truth with his oft-repeated pledge that seniors’ Medicare benefits will not be reduced. Under the health care overhaul proposals as written, traditional Medicare would still be open to all Americans age 65 and over, and the standard benefits would not change.

Private insurers can afford to offer extras under Medicare Advantage - such as lower premiums and coverage for eyeglasses and gym memberships - because the federal government pays them about 14 percent more per patient than Medicare typically spends.

Many health policy specialists say that, with Medicare nearing bankruptcy and millions of Americans going without any insurance at all, the United States can hardly afford to offer a pricier Medicare version that is growing more popular.

“The [Medicare Advantage] beneficiaries have gotten a very good deal from these overpayments. These are good services,’’ said Robert Berenson, a health policy specialist at the Urban Institute. “But it’s a very inefficient way to give people extra benefits.’’

The $120 billion cut to Medicare Advantage is part of spending reductions in Medicare totaling $460 billion to $540 billion over 10 years that have been proposed by Democrats. The cuts would fall on the government reimbursement rates for a broad variety of providers such as hospitals and home health agencies, which could probably absorb them without affecting the services elderly Americans receive, many specialists said in interviews.

Though some industry groups complain the spending reductions are too severe, adjustments could be made if problems arose because they would be phased in gradually. Most are aimed at making the programs more efficient.

“We think the proposals actually will improve access and quality,’’ John Rother, a leading lobbyist for the AARP, the large lobbying organization for senior citizens, said in an e-mail.

But Republicans have seized on Medicare spending reductions as a political bludgeon aimed at the health care overhaul.

Seniors are a key constituency, and “scaring seniors’’ with attack ads is a perennial campaign tactic for both parties.

Polls show that Republicans, who began decrying the Democrats’ Medicare proposals last summer, have already helped turn seniors against the president’s health care overhaul.

That is despite the GOP’s own proposals to cut Medicare by 14 percent over seven years in the mid-1990s, said health economist Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, a Washington research group.

The White House is scrambling to fight back. Yesterday it released a seven-page report titled “Health Insurance and Medicare: Making Medicare Stronger for Seniors’’ that emphasizes the upside of a health overhaul: major prescription drug discounts for seniors, free preventive services such as mammograms and colonosopies, and investments in higher quality care.

James Roosevelt Jr., chief executive of Tufts Health Plan, a Massachusetts plan with 83,000 Medicare Advantage subscribers, said the effect of the Medicare Advantage cuts will depend on how they are made.

The House Democrats’ proposal might not dramatically change Tufts’s offerings, he said. But the Senate version would be “quite devastating to what is available to our Medicare Advantage members,’’ he said.

Most of the rest of the Democrats’ Medicare spending reductions involve asking providers to accept a slower-than-expected rate of growth in payments over the next decade.

Some, such as payments to home health care agencies, were previously recommended by the Medicare Payment Assessment Commission.

Stuart Guterman, assistant vice president for the Commonwealth Fund’s payment system reform program, said, “This policy is saying something that providers ought to be able to do.’’

Some specialists worry seniors could be harmed indirectly. Gail Wilensky, who ran Medicare under President George H.W. Bush, notes that many nursing homes depend on getting overpaid by Medicare to offset the stingy payments states provide for Medicaid patients.

Curtailing those overpayments could strain those fragile institutions, she said.

But health policy specialists said the cuts should be considered in the context of a larger problem: Medicare is on the verge of going broke.

“We can think that the status quo means everybody has everything they have now, but that is all in danger if we don’t do anything,’’ Guterman said.

Most doctors don't want this plan, they know it will ruin healthcare as we know it, and most people are happy with their healthcare as it is.