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Questioning the Conventional Wisdom on Public Opinion Toward Health Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Lawrence R. Jacobs  and
Robert Y. Shapiro
Lawrence R. Jacobs
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Robert Y. Shapiro
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

Ample evidence confirms that public opinion influences the policy-making process. Research suggests that public preferences are not simply translated into government policy; rather, policymakers' response to public opinion is conditioned or mediated by political and institutional processes (Jacobs, 1993a, 1993b, 1992a, 1992b; Jacobs and Shapiro, 1994a, 1994b; for discussion of this research see PS, March 1994, 9–38).

The passage and designing of health reform will depend in important respects on public attitudes toward health care and health reform. The interpretation of public opinion by the media and other political observers, however, is not a neutral process dictated by scientific methods; it is the product of institutional and political struggles for position and power.

Conventional wisdom regarding the public's health reform attitudes holds that Americans are narrowly self-interested, unambiguously antitax, and unwavering opponents of government regulation. Are these three sets of assumed attitudes supported by the available empirical evidence?

Here we take an historical approach to studying public opinion—one that identifies the patterns and trends of Americans' responses to identically worded questions asked in national opinion surveys.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 208 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1994

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Footnotes

*

The authors recently received an “Investigator Award” from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study the interaction of public opinion, media coverage, and congressional deliberation during the current health reform debate.

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