September 29, 2009 07:18 PM UTC

Health Reform Scare Tactic Gains Reversed, Says New Poll

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• by: Colorado Pols

Check this out, just released from the Kaiser Family Foundation:

Public support for health reform ended its summer slide, reversed course and moved modestly upwards in September, according to the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans now believe that tackling health care reform is more important than ever — up from 53 percent in August. The proportion of Americans who think their families would be better off if health reform passes is up six percentage points (42% versus 36% in August), and the percentage who think that the country would be better off is up eight points (to 53% from 45% in August).

Despite the uptick, a substantial share of the public (47%) favors taking longer to work out a bipartisan approach to health reform, compared to 42 percent who would prefer to see Democrats move faster on their own…

Republicans and political independents became markedly more pessimistic about health reform in August, but those viewpoints softened in September. While 49 percent of Republicans say their family would be worse off if health reform passes, this is down from 61 percent in August. The percentage of independents saying they would be worse off fell from 36 percent in August to 26 percent this month.

Democrats remain overwhelmingly in favor of tackling health care now (77%), while most Republicans say we cannot afford to do so (63%) and independents are more evenly divided (51% in favor and 44% opposed).

Fifty-seven percent of the public — including 56% of independents — say the GOP is opposing reform plans more for political reasons than because they think reform will be bad for the country. [Pols emphasis]

It would seem, at long last, that the death panel/Nazicommunist/staffstroturf onslaught had a point of diminishing return. Don’t you feel better about humanity in general after reading this?