U-of-I polling on health care reform

The University of Iowa’s latest “Hawkeye Poll” was conducted at the end of October, which means the results may not be that useful in terms of “shelf-life.”  The House passed its health care reform plan a few weeks after the poll, for example and the Senate’s Democratic Leader unveiled a (proposed) senate plan last night.

But there were two items in the poll which I will highlight here.   First, the latest “Hawkeye Poll” found women view the prospect of health care reform much more favorably than men do.

Frederick Boehmke, a U-of-I political science professor, is the faculty advisor for the poll. “We see that women of both parties, as a matter of fact, a majority of them tend to support reform and think it’s a good idea,” Boehmke said during an interview with Iowa Public Radio. “Whereas men tend to be a little bit more opposed to it.” 

About 58 percent of the women who were surveyed said they support health care reform, while only 41 percent of the men who were questioned support the changes congress is considering.  The poll also measured the level of support or approval for President Obama.  

 “Among the voters that supported him in 2008, you can see that over 90 percent of them still are very supportive of what he’s done in office so far, whereas voters that chose McCain are very strongly opposed to what (Obama’s) done so far,” Boehmke said.

As you can read for yourself here, the poll found what many other polls have found.  There’s a fairly even split among Americans.  According to the “Hawkeye Poll” (which was conducted from October 23 through October 31) 52 percent of Americans, in general, believe health care reform would do more harm than good, while 48 percent support the plan.  The poll’s margin of error was three-and-a-half percent.