A new ABC-Washington Post poll found ObamaCare sunk to its lowest popularity yet: 52 percent opposed, and only 43 percent in favor. ABC mentioned the poll without fanfare at the end of a Jake Tapper report on Monday’s World News, and Tapper added this was the health law's "lowest level of popularity ever." But Tuesday’s Washington Post reported not one sentence on the poll in the paper – even as they reported in the paper that the same survey found Obama’s tax-and-unemployment-compensation deal has “broad bipartisan support.”
This is the same Post that highlighted the news on Page One on October 20, 2009, when they found a “clear majority” in favor of a socialist “public option” -- amid charges they oversampled Democrats.
The numbers weren't excluded because they arrived late. The Post poll numbers went up on the website yesterday at about 1 pm, under the headline “Health care opponents divided on repeal.” That obscured the numbers a bit, as Cohen found a “slim majority” (not a “clear majority”?) currently oppose ObamaCare:
Overall, 52 percent of those polled oppose the overhaul to the health care system, 43 percent are supportive of it. Fully 86 percent of Republicans are against the legislation; 67 percent of Democrats support it. Independents divide down the middle, with 47 percent in favor and the same number opposed.
Cohen made no mention of that phrase "lowest level of popularity ever." He did try to suggest that the individual mandate was wildly unpopular -- implying other parts of ObamaCare are still worth keeping:
Among the general public, the Kaiser poll showed 68 percent supportive of a repeal of the individual mandate. Of four core components of the health care law tested in the poll, the individual mandate was the one with the highest negatives, by far. Seventy percent of all those polled said they held an unfavorable view of the requirement that everyone carry insurance, including 52 percent who had "strongly unfavorable" opinions.
The omission of the new poll was so stunning, we double-checked. Obviously, the Post reported Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's win in federal court, with a ruling that found ObamaCare's individual mandate unconstitutional, but that story by Rosalind Helderman and Amy Goldstein never included Post poll numbers -- even as the story ended with the notiong:
Altman, of the Kaiser foundation, said Monday's ruling would, in the long run, prove less significant to the law's fate than the overall political climate. "There are going to be a lot of twists and turns," he said. "Ultimately, if President Obama is reelected in 2012, the law will be pretty much as it is." A change in administration, he said, could pose the biggest threat.
So if today's "political climate" is more important than a judge's decision, where is the Post poll? It looks like a very bizarre case of poll-and-hide.
