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George,
Delegate Toscano's critique of the CNU poll was not strong enough; he could have and should have buried it. It is one of the worst examples of a poll question that I have ever seen and I have been studying polling for over 40 years. The question reads: "In [the Medicaid] debate, the Democrats propose to subsidize private insurance for 400,000 uninsured and low income Virginians by using federal Medicaid money that would otherwise not come to Virginia. Republicans oppose this expansion because they fear the federal Medicaid money will not come as promised, and also say the current Medicaid program has too much waste and abuse and needs reform before it is expanded. I'd like to know where you stand, would you say that you generally support using federal Medicaid money to expand health coverage or oppose using federal Medicaid money to expand health coverage?" Any question that introduces partisanship, i.e., uses the words "Republican" or "Democrat," strongly biases the results. Republican respondents will automatically take the Republican side; Democrats, the Democratic side. In addition, this question comes close to being a push poll. Push polls "educate" respondents on the spot with certain arguments. The arguments can never be complete, i.e., present all sides. In this case, the question looks only at the financial aspects of the issue and slides over the desire on the part of Democrats to help those in need of health care. And questioners should never make it personal between themselves and the respondent. Saying "I'd like to know ..." makes it personal. The February 3rd CNU poll got it right. That question read: "Medicaid is a health care program for families and individuals with low incomes that is funded by both federal and state tax dollars. Currently, Virginia is faced with a decision about whether to expand the Medicaid program to cover an additional 400,000 mostly working poor Virginians who are uninsured. In general, do you support Medicaid expansion or oppose it?"This is neutral and gets at the central issue: should Medicaid be expanded to cover the uninsured working poor? This is the question that should have been repeated in the recent poll. Then there would be two comparable data points. Even that could not show a trend until more data points were obtained, but at least they would be two solid data points with little bias.
David RePass (Electronic mail, May 17, 2014)
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