National Health Care May Never Happen - Americans love the idea of insurance for all - until they realize how much it will cost them

摘要

THE LATEST POLLING LOOKS GREAT for President Obama: It shows that Americans love national health care. If history and polling trends are any guide, however, that will change. Voters right now are in what the famous pollster Daniel Yankelovich called the Wishful Thinking stage - a moment in the life of an opinion analogous to the dreamy early days of a relationship. Yankelovich believed opinion evolved through seven stages - Dawning Awareness, Greater Urgency, Reaching for Solutions, Wishful Thinking, Weighing the Choices, Taking a Stand, and Making a Responsible Judgment. In the next few weeks, when voters discover what national health care will cost and how it would affect their own care, romance will give way to reality.