Health-Care Protesters Winning Sympathy: Poll

It's too early to tell if bump in support for reform will stick

(NEWSER) - Much ado has been made over yesterday's Gallup poll, which showed 49% in favor of the health care bill to 40% opposed, but Republicans shouldn't freak out just yet, writes Nate Silver. Yes, it shows a big increase in support for reform, but it's just one poll, "and even if the bounce is real, it may very well evaporate," he writes at FiveThirtyEight . More»

(NEWSER) - A new Investors’ Business Daily poll showing doctors opposed to President Obama’s health care reform is generating some buzz today, but it's so flawed that Nate Silver has only this advice: “Completely ignore” it, he writes on FiveThirtyEight. Here’s why:

• It's conducted by mail: Hardly anyone does this because it strains credibility.
• Bias: Here's one question: "Do you believe the government can cover 47 million more people and it will cost less money and the quality of care will be better?" Says Silver: "Holy run-on-sentence, Batman"—a pollster who does this "is not intending to be objective."

(NEWSER) - To listen to the Obama camp and the liberal media, the anti-Obamacare protesters at last month’s town halls are a grave threat to our way of life, Mary Katharine Harn writes in the Weekly Standard. But “the climate of paranoia and violence that enveloped our political system this August was largely a creation” of the people who railed against it (think Olbermann and Matthews). In more than 400 meetings, “there were fewer than ten documented incidents that could be described as violent.” More»

(AP) - John McCain met with an angry crowd at a town hall meeting about health care reform yesterday, sometimes having to fight to talk and telling one woman who wouldn't stop shouting that she had to leave. The senator hadn't yet opened the meeting to questions when one audience member continuously yelled over him. McCain had security escort her out, saying, "Goodbye, see ya." More»

(NEWSER) - Arlen Specter got a taste of health care rage at a town hall event today, where a reform opponent got so angry that another attendee tried to physically remove him from the event. Specter descended from the stage to try to break up the confrontation, telling the man to leave if he wanted to. “I am gonna speak my mind before I leave!” he declared, yelling into Specter's microphone and complaining that he's not taken as seriously as special interests are. More»