Attention to the debate over Medicare is limited so far. Just one-in-five Americans (20%) say they have heard a lot about a proposal to change Medicare into a program that would give future participants a credit toward purchasing private health insurance coverage; half (50%) have heard a little about it, and 28% have heard nothing at all. Awareness is particularly low among younger Americans – fully 41% of adults under 30, and 34% of those ages 30-49, have heard nothing at all about this proposal. And politically, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say they have heard a lot about this proposal (26% vs. 16%).
The lack of awareness goes a long way toward explaining some of the contradictory views many Americans hold on this issue. In particular, people under age 30 are the only major demographic group in which significantly more say they favor (46%) than oppose (28%) this proposed change. Yet this same cohort is far more likely to say the Democratic Party (49%) not the Republican Party (34%) can do a better job on this issue.
While there is little partisan difference overall in reactions to this proposed Medicare change, there is a distinct partisan divide among the very attentive. Democrats who have heard a lot about the proposal are far more likely to oppose it (69% vs. 38% of Democrats who have heard little or nothing). Similarly, independents who have heard a lot about this proposal are significantly more likely to oppose it than those who have not (51% vs. 37%). However, Republicans who have heard a lot about the proposal, if anything, are more likely to support it.
ABOUT THE SURVEY
The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted May 25-30, 2011 among a national sample of 1,509 adults 18 years of age or older living in the continental United States (1,004 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 505 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 255 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older. For detailed information about our survey methodology, see http://people-press.org/methodology/
The combined landline and cell phone sample are weighted using an iterative technique that matches gender, age, education, race, Hispanic origin, region, and population density to parameters from the March 2010 Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The sample also is weighted to match current patterns of telephone status and relative usage of landline and cell phones (for those with both), based on extrapolations from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey. The weighting procedure also accounts for the fact that respondents with both landline and cell phones have a greater probability of being included in the combined sample and adjusts for household size within the landline sample. Sampling errors and statistical tests of significance take into account the effect of weighting. The following table shows the sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey:
Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request.
In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.
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