Now that I have considered several official perspectives on the debate, I think something very very interesting will be finding information about the discussion’s influence on the American people. As a starting point, take a look at the survey results below taken from the findings of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press (March 2010).
The survey's main interest was the question of how well-informed the average American feels to be about the current discussion. As you can see, about 44% answered they do not have sufficient information about it and in general, families with a higher income tend to say they understand the issue at least somewhat. If you read the institute’s summary you will see, that only 18% of the Americans said that they really understand the health care reform. I think this number to be alarmingly low. Only about a fifth thinks they know enough, so what about the rest? At least, more than half of the respondents stated that they do follow the discussion and unsurprisingly those who follow it very close tend to have a better idea of what is going on. The survey also found out that the media is their main source of information. Thinking about my previous post about TV ads, I am not really surprised. The study offers a lot more, but it is far too much to mention all results here. Anyway, just go and sneak a peek at it.
The main conclusion I drew from it is that the health care reform is very important to many American individuals. If you google for private blogs on this topic or search youtube for videos about personal opinions, you find loads of different statements. Here you find a small selection of different people and the things they have to say about health care:
In his post “Healthcare reform, should you be getting private healthcare?” Robertbloggert from Oklahoma discusses the situation of badly informed citizens depending on the biased new via the media. He himself tried to find out about facts concerning the reform, similar to my approach.
Joe Pugnetti, the author of the blog “A Liberal Point of View”, seems to be one of the rather well-informed citizens. His comments on the health care reform are very balanced and carefully thought out with scarcely any liberal bias.
This young woman used the service of youtube.com in order to share her thoughts on the reform. Her desire to express herself publicly is shared by many other people on the internet.
Of course, I cannot include all positions in one post, so if you think your opinion on it is worth sharing, just send a comment and tell.
