Poll says half favor Medicaid expansion

As both sides of the political debate dig in for weeks, or perhaps months, of tough negotiations over Gov. Jan Brewer's proposal to expand Medicaid in Arizona, a statewide poll indicates that nearly half of likely voters support the plan but that more than a third have never heard of it.

The poll, paid for by pro- expansion forces, also said that almost half of Republicans surveyed back the idea of broadening health-care coverage to low-income and disabled Arizonans under federal health reform.

Those who identified themselves as "tea party" members, however, oppose the move by a 2-1 ratio, 45percent to 22percent.

The survey of 500 voters was conducted March19-21 by the national polling firm Public Opinion Strategies. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4percentage points.

The results were shown to The Arizona Republic this week as House GOP leaders finished a series of small meetings with the rank and file, showcasing a preliminary state budget plan that doesn't include Brewer's Medicaid proposal. The governor also has been meeting privately with GOP members who support her plan.

She wants to expand the state-federal program, which insures about 1.2million Arizonans, to provide health insurance to an additional 400,000 and bring in about $1.6billion in federal funding in fiscal 2015, the first full year of expansion. The state's additional matching funds would be raised through a tax on hospitals that treat Medicaid patients.

The Arizona Business Coalition, led by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and the health-care industry, commissioned the poll and released portions of the survey, which lobbyist Jaime Molera said also included questions about Brewer's popularity.

Molera said results showed that the more voters know about the governor's Medicaid plan, the better they like it. He said the poll did not include "push" questions designed to lead respondents.

"It tells me exactly where we're at and what we need to do. … It tells me we're going in the right direction," he said.

Brewer's proposal has sharply divided her own Republican Party, and while most observers believe there are enough votes in the Legislature to win a simple majority, the politics are dicey enough that GOP backers want cover from more members before they vote for it.

Republican opponents, including the House and Senate leaders, are concerned that cost estimates of expansion are way off and that the federal government can't afford it and will eventually renege, leaving Arizona to pay or toss people off the rolls.

"My proposal is, you don't expand Medicaid," said Senate President Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert. "There are a million and one reasons I think this is a bad idea."

Among those surveyed, 47percent said they supported Brewer's expansion plan, 17percent opposed it, and 36percent had not heard of it.

The poll also indicated that support for expansion grows among people who say they've heard a lot about the plan.

Nearly three-fourths of those who say they're somewhat familiar with Brewer's plan are supportive.

And it also hinted at strong support for Brewer and her conservative credentials, which supporters say should comfort GOP lawmakers whom local party officials are threatening to unseat in the next election.

"Republicans are getting threatened that they're going to lose their seats," Molera said. "If Governor Brewer is behind something, and certainly behind them … having her behind you is going to be tremendously powerful."

In a separate question, survey respondents were given three choices: Restoring the voter-approved childless-adult program at a cost to the state of $450million; expanding Medicaid to cover more people at a state cost of $150million; and doing nothing to restore or expand the program. Fifty-two percent chose expansion, 21percent wanted to restore coverage for childless adults and 21percent wanted to do nothing.

Sen. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, said she remains concerned about the costs of expanding Medicaid and the accuracy of the state's estimates of how many people will qualify. And she questions why states or the federal government would want to expand Medicaid to people earning 133percent of the federal poverty level, or about $15,000 a year, instead of providing subsidies to help people find their own insurance on newly created online health exchanges.

"I still have some huge reservations because of the cost going forward," Barto said. "I just think we're not doing people any favors by pushing them onto a Medicaid system."

Rep. Heather Carter, R-Cave Creek, who is leading efforts to get expansion through the House, said she believes that the more lawmakers and their constituents learn about Medicaid expansion, the more supportive they will become.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Shifting Dynamics Favor G.O.P. House Majority

But the 2012 struggle for control of the House is shaping up less as a partisan surge than as a series of squalls, in which the outcome will largely depend on individual survival skills rather than a national movement.

In New York, Dan Maffei, a Democrat, hopes to snag back a seat he lost two years ago, while Representative Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who won in a special election last year, is trying desperately to hang on. In California, a nonpartisan primary and an expensive member-against-member contest between two Democrats, Brad Sherman and Howard Berman, have muddled the outlook in a state where Democrats had high hopes.

In Illinois, Democrats are trying to unseat several Republicans, from the freshman Bobby Schilling to the long-serving Judy Biggert, thanks to a redistricting advantage. Republicans are countering with the same strategy in North Carolina, where moderate Democrats like Larry Kissell and Mike McIntyre face challenges.

The overall dynamic favors Republicans, who look poised to maintain their hold on the House. More Democrats than Republicans have retired in districts where they were endangered, and more Republicans benefited from the decennial redistricting, leaving the Democrats with too small a cushion of Teflon incumbents as they try to regain a majority in the House.

Of the 80 races viewed as most competitive by The New York Times, based on polls and interviews with independent analysts, 32 are leaning Republican, 23 are leaning Democratic and 25 are tossups.

Although lawmakers’ approval ratings have hit historical lows, it appears that many voters want their representatives to continue to take the fight to the opposing party.

“There is no doubt that voters believe Washington is broken,” said David Wasserman, the House editor of The Cook Political Report. “But most believe it is broken because the other side broke it.”

Referring to Speaker John A. Boehner, the top Republican, and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader, he added: “Voters in Boehner’s district believe they are sending Boehner there to fight Obama, and Pelosi’s district believes she is there to fight the Tea Party. It is a retrenchment, not a referendum.”

Unlike in 2006, when Democrats ran in unison against the Bush administration and dethroned the Republican majority, the Democrats now have no cohesive plan. Some will link themselves to President Obama; others will treat him and his policies like bedbugs.

At the same time, Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, does not appear to be creating the sort of political movement that Mr. Obama stirred in 2008, allowing Democrats to harness his momentum.

“In each of the past three election cycles,” Mr. Wasserman said, “things were all going right for one party. What we are seeing now is there is kind of a hybrid effect, with no real momentum for either party.”

The atmosphere is similar surrounding policy issues. Unlike the health care debate, which dominated the 2010 Congressional elections, with huge benefits for Republicans, no policy discussion appears to be dominating the House elections this year, beyond the universal desire for more jobs.

The upshot may well be a House with a few more Democrats or a few more Republicans but no radical reconstruction. More gridlock would be likely to follow.

“A lot had to go right for Nancy Pelosi to be speaker again, and a lot has gone wrong” for her to retrieve the gavel, said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The Democrats, of course, will not retreat. With a message that focuses on House Republican votes, combined with the targeting of open seats and seats held by the most conservative members, Democratic officials believe it is possible to eke out the net gain of 25 seats needed to take back the House.

The party has “a gentle breeze behind our backs,” said Representative Steve Israel of New York, who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“Whether it is strong enough to take us to the majority remains to be seen, but election night will be a good night for Democrats,” Mr. Israel said.

The Democratic Party’s first step is to go after Tea Party-tinted incumbents in districts where they seem out of step with most voters. The Democrats have very good shots at defeating, for instance, Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois, who has derided his opponent, Tammy Duckworth, a disabled Iraq war veteran, over how often she talks about her military service, and Representative Ann Marie Buerkle of New York, who was blessed by Sarah Palin.

But Republicans have also outfoxed Democrats through redistricting and moving candidates around.

View the original article here

Evangelicals favor Tim Pawlenty in new 2012 poll (The Ticket)

Tim Pawlenty has been working hard to make inroads among evangelical voters ahead of next year's GOP primary, and it appears his efforts might be working.

A new poll of evangelical leaders by the National Association of Evangelicals finds that a plurality of those surveyed—45 percent—want Pawlenty to be the 2012 Republican nominee. Mitt Romney trailed, with 14 percent support, while 22 percent said they were undecided.

As The Ticket previously reported, Pawlenty has sought to cast himself as an alternative to Romney among social conservatives, who remain skeptical about the ex-Massachusetts governor's standing on issues like abortion.

Earlier this week, Romney was criticized for refusing to sign a sweeping anti-abortion pledge sponsored by the Susan B. Anthony List.

But some leading evangelicals have openly questioned whether Pawlenty has the charisma to beat Romney or President Obama.

In February, Richard Land, policy chief of the Southern Baptist Convention, said Pawlenty was a "nice guy" but he "doesn't move crowds the way some do."

(Photo of Pawlenty: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

View the original article here

Karl Rove 'super PAC' won't favor any 2012 candidate during primaries (The Christian Science Monitor)

Washington – Supporters of Mitt Romney, the front-runner in the Republican presidential field, have launched a “super PAC” to raise money to promote his candidacy, even as leaders of American Crossroads, the biggest of the Republican super PACs, promised Friday to remain neutral during the primary season.

That signals that American Crossroads intends to save most of its fire for the general election, when the GOP nominee will be up against a well-funded President Obama, and will not choose a horse in the GOP nominating race.

The wrinkle in that scenario is that the new pro-Romney PAC and American Crossroads share a key executive – an overlap that had reporters closely questioning the Crossroads leaders about the neutrality assertion when they appeared Friday at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast gathering.

Gas prices and five other liabilities for Obama in 2012

Since the 2010 Supreme Court decision that opened the door to campaign spending by a wider array of contributors, so-called super PACs (political action committees) have been springing up. It's now permissible for these super PACs to raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations, and unions, as long as the donors are disclosed and the groups do not coordinate their spending with federal candidates.

According to a Washington Post report, Romney supporters have launched Restore Our Future PAC. It is not known how much Restore Our Future has already raised to support the Romney campaign.

American Crossroads, a group founded by Karl Rove, former President Bush's political adviser, among others, insists it will remain neutral during the 2012 primary season.

“It is important for us to clearly state that Crossroads … will not be involved in the Republican presidential primary. We are just not going to do that,” said the group's chairman, Mike Duncan. Though the group says it will not spend money to advance the cause of any primary candidate, it might spend as the primary season ends if Democrats attack the GOP's presumptive nominee, its executives said.

Reporters asked Mr. Duncan and Steven Law, the group’s president and CEO, pointed questions about American Crossroads' neutrality. The Washington Post story about the pro-Romney super PAC noted that its board of directors includes political operative Carl Forti, who was political director for Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign. Mr. Forti is now political director of American Crossroads.

“Carl is a contract employee with American Crossroads. He has other clients; we knew he had other clients. But clearly none of us are going to be involved personally in presidential campaigns. And he is not either,” Duncan said.

“The only thing I would add to that,” said Mr. Law, “is the work that Carl does for us is work that every contender for the Republican nomination would be supportive of, which is that he is helping find ways to make sure President Obama does not return to office.”

Getting bin Laden and five other boosts to Obama's reelection bid

View the original article here

Voters fret about Mormonism but still favor Romney (The Ticket)

Mitt Romney has opened a sizable lead in a new poll of 2012 GOP contenders, in spite of voter reservations about a Mormon in the White House.

A new Quinnipiac Poll finds 25 percent of likely GOP voters support the former Massachusetts governor in the race for the GOP nomination. That's 10 points more than Sarah Palin, the only other potential 2012 hopeful to crack double-digits in the poll.

Romney's lead is significant as the poll finds voters continue to have serious doubts about his religion. Just 45 percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion of Mormonism, while 32 percent said they have an unfavorable view.

Asked if they would be comfortable with a Mormon president, 60 percent of voters said they would be "comfortable" compared to 36 percent who said they'd be "uncomfortable."

By comparison, 83 percent of voters said they'd be comfortable with a Catholic in the White House, 80 percent with a Jewish president and 67 percent with a president who was an evangelical Christian. Just 38 percent of those polled said they'd be okay with a Muslim president, while 37 percent said they'd be comfortable with an atheist in the White House.

Who would have the most problems with a Mormon in the White House? Democrats. According to Quinnipiac, just 49 percent of Dems say they'd be okay with a Mormon president, compared to 68 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of self-described independent voters.

Romney holds a big lead over other likely 2012 rivals, according to the poll. Herman Cain came in third in the poll, with 9 percent support. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul both got 8 percent trailed by Michele Bachmann (6 percent), Tim Pawlenty (5 percent), Rick Santorum (4 percent) and Jon Huntsman (1 percent). Twenty percent of likely GOP voters say they are still undecided in the race.

Yet the poll also differs from an ABC News/Washington Post poll released yesterday that found Obama and Romney virtually tied in a potential general election match-up. Quinnipiac's poll finds Obama leading Romney 47 percent to 41 percent--a number that Obama's team likely prefers but is still pretty dismal for an incumbent president.

(Photo of Romney: Stephen Savoia/AP)

View the original article here