- Question 1 asks about my health insurance. I get two options: (1) employer-based insurance (2) uninsured or one Medicare/Medicaid. What about the millions of people buying their own insurance on the individual market? Oops.
- Question 2 asks if I'm satisfied with my current policy. So if I'm uninsured, how am I supposed to answer that? And how will the researchers distinguish between respondents who are dissatisfied with being uninsured and those who are dissatisfied with Medicare/Medicaid? Oops.
- Question 3 asks (and I paraphrase) if I would prefer Congress pass a plan creating a government-run health insurance program that would compete against private companies or work with private companies to lower rates, cover the uninsured, and protect our free-market health care system. The problem with the wording should be obvious: option #1 is portrayed as simply creating competition, while option #2 is portrayed as actually producing results. Oops.
But unless I hear back from D.A.T. or any of you phone owners out there saying you got a different survey, if you get mail or read Tea Party press releases a month from now citing D.A.T. Research on health care reform, feel to dismiss the results as invalid.
I just received the same call, and had the same reaction. So I googled them, and you came up in the number one position. Thanks for exposing this obvious "push poll."
ReplyDeleteJust got one too- she sounded so friendly, but it didn't hide the loaded questions...
ReplyDeleteI delete an Anonymous, but still must comment on his/her/its remarkable interpretation of the above survey as biased in favor of a government-run health coverage option. I read the exact opposite bias. Anyone care to straighten us out?
ReplyDeleteNumbers are presented (sometimes twisted) to a favorable light. Companies want to protect profits. Our fault too because we obsess over stock price: the reason for-profit health care is immoral.
ReplyDeletePhone ringers off, voice mail on ... Ach! Countless missed annoyances!
ReplyDeleteJohnSD: profit-protection is all I'm hearing in this survey!
ReplyDeleteStan: Indeed, we should all perhaps take more advantage of our ability to disconnect from the annoyances foisted on us by telemarketers and others. But, in my twisted mind, these phone surveys are kind of fun. They're like little mental puzzles, challenging me to find the hidden meanings behind the wording. They're also good practice for my own research, helping me watch for potential biases in my own survey questions.