Time magazine columnist Joe Klein-- in a column that generally tilts in Obama's favor-- starts off with a rather curious observation about healthcare policy (see bold):

This really gets down to the fundamental difference in our philosophies," John McCain said, quite accurately, in the heat of the third presidential debate. "If you notice ... Senator Obama wants government to do the job. He wants government to do the job. I want you, Joe, to do the job," referring to a plumber Barack Obama had met on the campaign trail. The job, in this case, was finding health insurance. And in years past, McCain would have had the better of this argument — it is the classic division between liberals and conservatives. But 2008 has proved to be a new and frightening moment for the American electorate, and having the government help in finding, and funding, health care doesn't sound like such a bad idea anymore.

But the idea that the public has just recently warmed to the idea of government involvement in health care is erroneous; the Gallup Poll, for instance, has been asking the public the following question for at least the last eight years:

Do you think it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage, or is that not the responsibility of the federal government?

The "is" answer has ranged anywhere from 59 to 69 percent over the past eight years (it stood at 64 percent in 2007). And given that other surveys have shown wide support for a single-payer system, it seems more accurate to say that it's not the public changing its mind--it's the pundits.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 1:34 pm and is filed under Media Criticism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.