COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Sorry about going offthread on the very first comment, but I'm on a roll. :)
ReplyDelete.....
Obamacare improved key health-care measurements for millions of Americans, reversing a troubling trend, a new study strongly suggests. The study found marked gains in the number of people with insurance—as other research has repeatedly confirmed—as well as improved access to doctors and medications, affordable health care and good health status after implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
But the research published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association also noted that the the gains in health coverage and access to care for low-income adults were particularly striking in states that expanded their Medicaid programs under the ACA to include more poor people.
The researchers looked at three years of Gallup survey raw data to come to these conclusions. Gallup has been doing quarterly surveys on health coverage since 2008, so it has an established methodology with consistent questioning that allows for researchers to be confident in the trendlines in the surveys, and in this case the trendlines point to increased health care to go along with the increased insurance. That is particularly true in the Medicaid expansion state, the researchers say.
States that expanded Medicaid saw the uninsured rate among low-income adults drop by 5.2 percentage points more than non-expansion states, according to the study. Expansion states had drop in the number of such adults who had no personal doctor that was 1.8 percentage points better than non-expansion state, and 2.2 percentage points greater than non-expansion states when measuring the number of low-income earners who had no easy access to medicine.
The only area of health self-reporting that didn't show statistical improvement was the number of days spent ill, but even a trend that had been moving downward stopped getting worse when the law kicked in. There was a 5.5 percentage point drop in people reporting that they couldn't afford care. There was a 3.4 percentage point drop of people reporting they were in poor health. This, combined with large decreases in the uninsured rate for minorities leads the authors to conclude "that the ACA may be associated with reductions in long-term disparities in access to care, one of the goals of the ACA." So, yeah, it seems to be working, and . . . . .
More Care
. . . .
ReplyDeleteNow for the main feature.
Both Democrats lead Republicans in hypothetical match-ups,though Clinton is entirely outside the margin of error and is absolutely crushing them all, while with Sanders it's more competitive.
Hillary Clinton 48%
Jeb Bush 39%
Not sure 13%
Bernie Sanders 42%
Jeb Bush 37%
Not sure 21%
Clinton is at or 50% against Cruz, Trump, Huckabee, and Walker, and at 49% against Carson, Christie, Fiorina, and Rubio.
The only "match-ups" in which Clinton is below 49% are Bush (48%) and Paul (47%).
Sanders best "match-up" is against Trump (48/32). He leads Rubio (40/34) and Walker (40/36). Those are the only Sanders match-ups listed.
Favorability
Clinton has the highest "favorability" number of anybody in the race, at 45. But her unfavorables are 47, making her 2% upside down. Drilling down a bit, though, we see that the numbers are 74/16 among Obama voters but 4/94 among Romney voters. No surprise, really. Republicans have always hated her.
Sanders "favorability" number is a mere 29%, with an unfavorable of 30, for a net -1. But he's an unknown. The biggest number is "not sure," at 41%. Among Democrats the numbers are 41/19/40, and among Republicans it's 8/50/42.
Clinton has a big gender gap, with women favoring strongly, and men going the other way:
Women 52/41/7
Men 37/54/9
Sanders is a slight favorite among women, not among men, but has big unknowns:
Women 27/25/48
Men 31/36/34
Clinton is also doing very well with minorities:
Hispanic 61/32/7
White 39/53/8
African American 66/25/9
Other 44/44/12
Sanders remains an overall unknown, but his numbers are really bad among Hispanics:
Hispanic 28/45/25
White 29/30/41
African American 24/26/49
Other 42/18/40
That problem with Hispanics runs over into individual match-ups.
Among Hispanics, Clinton beats Rubio 70/26 but Sanders loses 37/43.
The Bush match-up, among Hispanics, is different, too. Clinton is 63/18, Sanders is still winning, but at 54/30.
Against Walker, Clinton wins big, and Sanders loses big, among Hispanics, at 71/26 vs. 37/43.
The African American vote favors Democrats in all match-ups, but Clinton's numbers surpass Sanders' by as much as 20 points.
Against Bush Clinton gets 75% of the AA vote, Sanders is at 58 with 34 undecided.
Against Rubio Clinton gets a whopping 82,while Sanders is just at 58.
Against Walker she gets 83, Sanders gets 64.
There's been lots of griping around here about Sanders' performance among people of color. This poll is consistent with prior ones showing Hillary is far stronger among POC, particularly Hispanics. Among African Americans, she does better but Sanders is still a big unknown. Hispanics, though, seem to really not like him.
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Latino, Latino, Latino
I cut off the top part of that article; the numbers are from Illinois.
DeleteObama won Illinois by 17 points in 2012.
Delete(take out Cook County, and Obama Lost Illinois)
Wiki
RCP President:
ReplyDeleteClinton / Rubio - Clinton +7.6
Clinton / Paul - Clinton +4.4