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Three of four N.C. residents think the U.S. health-care system needs reform, and 54percent support a public health insurance option, according to an Elon University Poll.
The extent of support for the "public option" - which has split lawmakers in the Democrat-controlled Congress - surprised poll director Hunter Bacot. That's because North Carolina "tends to be a bit conservative."
Bacot speculated that support for a public option reflects financial struggles of people who have lost jobs and insurance.
"People who normally don't have to worry about health insurance have found themselves worried about it," he said. "People who have it are paying more. Others have lost their jobs, and don't have it."
Compared to September 2008, when another Elon poll was conducted, the number of residents with private health coverage has dropped from 83 percent to 73 percent.
In the latest poll, 42 percent of respondents said they'd lost jobs or had their work hours cut. Forty-one percent of respondents said they would use a public health insurance option if it became available.
In proposals currently being debated in Congress, the public option would allow citizens who lack existing coverage to purchase insurance through the federal government.
A recent USA Today/Gallup poll found 50 percent of Americans backed a public option, and 46 percent opposed it. A recent CNN poll found 61 percent supported an insurance option administered by the government, and 38 percent opposed it.
The latest Elon poll, conducted Oct. 26-29, surveyed 703 N.C. residents and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. The sample is of the population in general, with numbers that include both landlines and cell phones.
Despite the majority support for a public option in North Carolina, the Elon poll found the state evenly split on whether to have a national insurance plan where the federal government pays most medical and hospital costs for all citizens. Forty-seven percent of N.C. residents support such a plan and 47 percent oppose it. Six percent said "don't know."
"Everybody agrees that health-care needs reforming," Bacot said. "But there's a difference between talking and actually getting down to the nitty gritty of legislation."
An Elon poll in March found higher support for a national insurance plan - 56 percent in favor and 38 percent opposed. That support slipped, Bacot said, as more details began to emerge.
"It was basically information overload," he said. "They're more likely to say 'Just keep what we have' because they just truly don't understand it. People don't like change, and this is going to be a tremendous change, regardless of what happens."
Jonathan Oberlander, an associate professor in health policy research at UNC Chapel Hill, said the Elon poll numbers show that "support for health reform, for all the sound and fury in the debate, is still fairly broad."
But he said there could be confusion when it comes to the public option. Americans who have employer-sponsored health insurance won't be allowed to join the new insurance exchanges that make up the public option.
"There could be an expectations problem here, since the debate has focused so much on availability of a public plan that won't be available to most Americans," Oberlander said.
