Soledad O'Brien Cherry Picks Poll Numbers In Favor of ObamaCare
CNN's Soledad O'Brien cherrypicked poll numbers to argue that the American public favors ObamaCare, when four polls from the last week show more Americans opposing the law than favoring it.
On Friday's Starting Point, O'Brien challenged Gov. Bob McDonnell's
(R-Va.) premise that "about 60 percent" of Americans oppose the
ObamaCare mandate. She cited "the latest poll" from Bloomberg showing a majority of respondents wanting the law to remain mostly or completely intact.
"So I think on the polling, you might be wrong there," O'Brien corrected the governor. However, at least four polls released days after the Bloomberg poll show more voters opposing the law than supporting it. All in all, of seven recent polls on ObamaCare only two show the public favoring the law or its repeal -- and O'Brien chose the poll numbers most favorable to Obama.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey
conducted from June 20-24 had 41 percent of respondents saying
ObamaCare was a "bad idea," compared to 34 percent calling it a "good
idea."
A Washington Post/ABC News poll
released this past week shows 55 percent of registered voters have an
"unfavorable" impression of "the federal law making changes in the
healthcare system," compared to just 37 percent having a "favorable"
impression.
A Rasmussen poll from this week has 54 percent favoring a repeal of ObamaCare, versus just 39 percent opposing a repeal. And a Fox News poll conducted from June 24-26 shows 49 percent of respondents opposing the health care law, with 39 percent supporting it.
In addition, an Associated Press poll
was conducted around the same time as the Bloomberg poll, and it
recorded 47 percent of respondents opposing the health care reforms of
2010, with only 33 percent supporting the reforms.
One poll, released by the Public Religion Research Institute, had 43 percent opposing the repeal of ObamaCare, with 35 percent favoring it. However, the Bloomberg poll was more favorable to Obama with 58 percent of respondents wanting the all or most of ObamaCare to be upheld.
So out of seven polls, Soledad O'Brien picked the one most favorable to President Obama.
-- Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center