Patchwork Nation: As Health Care Bill Details Solidify, Public Support Drops

PATCHWORK NATION -- December 30, 2009 at 3:10 PM EDT

Patchwork Nation: As Health Care Bill Details Solidify, Public Support Drops

After months of debate and wrangling to get health reform bills passed in the Senate and the House, much of the support from the public has now dwindled, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and Press and analyzed through the prism of Patchwork Nation's community types.

Of the 12 communities used to examine trends in Patchwork Nation, only one, "Immigration Nation," counties with a high percentage of Latinos, had a majority who "generally favored" the "health care proposals being discussed in Congress," according to analysis by Dante Chinni, project director for Patchwork Nation.

Some that heavily supported President Obama and Congress' health care push earlier in the year, including the big city "Industrial Metropolis" counties and the wealthier and highly-educated "Monied Suburbs" appear to no longer support the plan.

"The most simple reading of these numbers is they are result of a big bill that excludes provisions that would please the left - a public option, lowering the age at which people can join Medicare - while still injecting more government into the system, which the right despises. It offers little for supporters and its very existence angers conservatives," Chinni writes.

Chinni checked in on attitudes toward health care reform in August and again in October as some of the details of possible bills were still being hashed out.

Congress is now tasked with reconciling the House and Senate versions of the legislation. Both chambers will need to vote again on the bill before it lands on President Obama's desk, and judging from these numbers, the final product may have even less support.

Patchwork Nation will keep an eye on the issue and what it means to the upcoming mid-term elections in the coming months.

Patchwork Nation is an editorial collaboration between the Christian Science Monitor, the PBS NewsHour and local PBS stations.

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