The Rasmussen Smack Down of Krugman

Krugman disingenuous with unproven accusations, shocking!

In a blog posting yesterday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman raises questions about a recent Rasmussen Reports poll of Massachusetts voters. The poll shows that Bay State voters are less than enthusiastic about the state’s experiment in health care reform.

Krugman states that “last year polling seemed to show very strong support for the Massachusetts plan.” He then asks, "So has support plunged since then? Or is the wording of the Rasmussen poll calculated to give a negative result?"

Krugman must have an interesting definition of “very strong support.” The poll he cited found that just 14% want to continue the state's health care reform program, 12% want to repeal it, and 70% want to keep it but change it.

In fairness, the survey did find support for the goals of the program and some individual aspects of it. However, the survey by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation broadly confirms the key results of the Rasmussen poll.

For example, Rasmussen Reports found that 21% believe the state’s health care reform made health care more affordable while 27% said it's now less affordable and 44% say there has been no change.

The Harvard study found that 20% believed the Health Insurance Law had helped the cost of health care in Massachusetts while 39% said it had hurt and 30% said it was not having much impact. That assessment is actually more negative than the finding in the Rasmussen Reports survey. By the way, the Harvard study also found that 33% believed their own cost of care had gone up while just six percent (6%) said it had gone down.

Rasmussen Reports asked if the program was a success. Twenty-six percent (26%) say yes, 37% say no, and 37% are not sure.

Harvard did not ask that question. However, they did find that just 14% said they had been helped by the bill while 18% said they had been hurt by it. Additionally, 14% said the legislation helped the state budget, and 39% said it hurt. Again, if anything, the Rasmussen Reports numbers seem a bit more upbeat than the survey cited by Krugman.

Well I guess you can say Krugman is cherry picking intel! So how did Krugman make his great assertion?

Rather than recognizing the common ground between the Harvard and Rasmussen Reports polls, Krugman simply aired his assertion and then added, “I will say that Rasmussen is coming in for a lot of criticism for what looks like slanted polling.” For this, he cited an article quoting three Democratic pollsters who raised questions about the relevance of the Rasmussen Reports Presidential Approval Index.

The approval index is actually quote relevant. It clearly explain why people are showing up on their own volition to oppose Obama care, while the left needs to rely on its existing structure to bus people to events as supporters.