by Mark Silva
President Barack Obama, hitting the road for healthcare reform again today, will take his case to two red states that he turned blue last year:
North Carolina and Virginia.
The president has some selling to do.
Fewer than half of Americans surveyed believe that healthcare reform will improve medical care in the United States, the Gallup Poll finds - just 44 percent. And only about one in four of those surveyed - 26 percent - believe it will improve their own healthcare.
As the House presses for a vote on a bill, with the Senate delaying any vote until at least September, the president is attempting to rally public support for reforms which he insists will not only offer healthcare to those lacking insurance today, but also improve the quality and contain the cost of care for those who already have it. Republicans, and conservative Democrats as well, are chafing at the costs and taxes necessary to pay for the plans.
"Sometimes I get a little frustrated,'' the president acknowledged at a forum on health care at the AARP in Washington on Tuesday, "because this is one of those situations where it's so obvious that the system we have isn't working well for too many people and that we could just be doing better.
"We're not going to have a perfect health care system; it's a complicated system, there are always going to be some problems out there. But we could be doing a lot better than we're doing right now.''
The president also insisted that he can achieve his goals this year.
"We've made a lot of progress over the last few months. We're now closer to health care reform than we ever have been before," Obama said at the televised AARP forum. "I'm confident that we can do the right thing ... and pass health insurance reform."
This morning, the president will fly to Raleigh, North Carolina, one of the states which for decades had voted Republican but last year supported his candidacy for the White House. He will hold another "town-hall'' styled forum on healthcare reform at Broughton High School, at 11:55 am EDT.
From there, he will fly to Bristol, Virginia, another state that pivoted to the Democratic column for Obama in last year's elections, a state now also electing Democrats to statewide office. He will stage another "town hall'' at a Kroger Supermarket, at 4:15 pm EDT.
The president will return to Washington tonight.
The Gallup Poll's findings on public sentiment about healthcare reform aren't the only signs of concern for a White House attempting to convince Congress to adopt the president's agenda.
The president's job-approval rating has reached a new low in the Gallup Poll's daily tracking.
The president's approval rating in the latest three-day average of tracking polls - 54 percent - marks his lowest score to date, Gallup says. And his average mark for the seven-day period that ended Sunday - 56 percent - was a few points off the average of the previous week's 59 percent.
That's the "largest week-to-week decline seen in Obama's job approval thus far in his presidency, and punctuates a gradual descent from his 66 percent rating in early May,'' Gallup reports in the aftermath of a week in which the president attempted to boost pressure on Congress for healthcare reform and waded instead into a divisive dispute over the Cambridge Police Department's arrest of a black Harvard professor.
The latest numbers for Saturday through Monday - 54 percent job-approval - mark a new low for Obama, whose Gallup approval ratings stood in the high 60's after inauguration -- with 37 percent of those surveyed by Gallup in the latest tracking polls oicing disapproval.
Comments
The public doesn't like ObamaCare, even after media sources such as The Swamp favors his side of the debate 6 to 1. Amazing.
But don't worry, Barack, you still have 99% support in the press room.
Posted by: Bruce | July 29, 2009 8:50 AM
His doctor for the past 20 years doest not like his healthcare plan. And while the majority of of Americans dislike his healthcare, why should we have to swallow his stupid program.
Posted by: Paul | July 29, 2009 9:04 AM
All this health care talk should be put on hold until BO produces a BIRTH CERTIFICATE! There is nothing more important than know if a foreigner has taken control of the white house. This is about the RULE OF LAW! God bless America and God bless Sarah Palin
Posted by: jims | July 29, 2009 9:06 AM
Just wait til it gets so high that THEY can't afford it. ( the ones who oppose it now) Then they'll be singing a different tune...but it will be too late. EVERYONE knows that it just keeps going up and up and UP...THEN WE GET A PRESIDENT WHO ACTUALLY CARES, AND WHAT HAPPENS? ROADBLOCKS AT EVERY TURN! BUT THERE'S ALWAYS MONEY FOR WAR, RIGHT???!!!!!
Posted by: Mary | July 29, 2009 9:23 AM
Given the Republican distortions, falsehoods and lies, it is no wonder that President Obama's ambitious program to make healthcare available to every citizen, is hitting some rough going !! Just as they did in the last presidential election, so now, they are trying to scare and dirty President Obama's initiative on healthcare, for no other reason, than to preserve their flow of cash from these bloodsucking healthcare insurers and providers !! What until even more Americans are without healthcare coverage, or under-coverage, than you will hear a ruckus, the likes of which, we haven't heard since " Mission Accomplished ". Tell the conservatives of this nation, that greed is no longer a virtue !! it has reeked too much pain and suffering on our nation !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME. ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | July 29, 2009 10:03 AM
Bruce,
What are you worried about?
Healthcare reform is dead. We will be presented with a private health insurance 'profit enhancement act' that will be called 'reform'.
Single payer was never on the table and a credible public option has now been all but shelved. You watch; I bet that even watered down reforms like ending pre-existing condition denials and not letting the insurance companies drop you if you get sick will be eliminated from the bill.
Through fear of the right wing and cowtowing to the insurance industry lobby the Dems have signed their own political death warrant. Healthcare reform is their last chance to prove their worth yet they don't seem to understand that. For two years they appeased Bush with the promise to America that once they controlled the White House things would begin to move. And what have we gotten? Loaded guns in the parks, weak, ineffective, loophole filled credit card reform, no serious financial or banking reform.
Sleep well Bruce; It's status quo in Washington.
Posted by: C.Morris✧ | July 29, 2009 10:13 AM
It's time for Obama, as Bill Maher put it the other day, 'find his inner Bush' and get tuff.
He needs to issue a veto threat to the Democrats. 'No robust public option, no bill signing'.
But he can't do that now, can he? He has spent months making dreamy eyes at the Blue Dogs.
Posted by: OldCreaky | July 29, 2009 10:23 AM
Bold prediction: Obama’s approval ratings on health care rise in the next round of polls after his intense pushback again st GOP smears.
http://www.political-buzz.com/
Posted by: matt | July 29, 2009 11:08 AM
We get it. We can not afford to keep things the way they are, but that doesn't mean any reform (particularly one that represents the usual solution to everything Democrat to "cut costs" which is enslave more people to the same system, spread the burden to more people). We are just one big cash cow to the government, and try, just try, to benefit form the system there will be enough red tape and bureaucracy to keep you in line. You own nothing. You have to insure your life, your body, your house, your car, your fridge, your dog (much cheaper without insurance). Insurance is the biggest crock of the modern century. The direction, whether more people use it, is always like the MTA, fees always going up. I wonder how this will affect women considering that male to female women health costs are ridicules. I'm suspecting the whole "reproductive care." Just one more thing to make women know their place in context of 'your place.' Wonder which side public or private will cater to them, and what side they will trend towards. If abortion is left out of gov-- they have no choice but to go private. The private sector loves this idea. They charge women more.
Posted by: When the media has more time to chew on this, expect lower poll results. | July 29, 2009 11:26 AM
The Republicans are spending too much time talking about Obama's plan and not their own.
A couple of weeks ago they hammered out their idea of health care reform.
But they rarely ever refer to it. In fact most Americans have no idea what the Republican proposal for healthcare reform is.
This leads me to believe that they really don't want any change in the healthcare system. They just threw out their plan in order to say "We have an idea too".
Problem to me is that while most Americans think healthcare needs a major overhaul, the Republicans in Congress really think we currently have the best system there is.
Posted by: Norris Hall | July 30, 2009 2:51 AM