Nevada

Nevadans hate Dem health care plan -- and Reid's role in it
By: Byron YorkChief Political Correspondent0

A new poll by the Las Vegas Review Journal shows that a solid -- and growing -- majority of Nevadans oppose the Democratic health care plan now working its way through Congress. The margin for Nevadans overall is 54 percent oppose to 35 percent support. Among independents, it is 62 percent oppose to 26 percent support. Among Republicans, it is 89 percent oppose to four percent support. Only among Democrats does the plan have significant support, at 67 percent, versus 18 percent who are opposed.

In what is more bad news for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, 60 percent of Nevadans say they do not approve of Reid's efforts to push the bill through Congress. That number includes 27 percent of Democrats who do not approve of Reid's actions. The paper's pollsters found that a broad majority of state residents just don't like the legislative maneuvering Reid and his fellow Democrats engaged in to get the bill through the Senate:
Brad Coker, managing partner of the Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the telephone poll of 625 registered voters Tuesday through Thursday, said the plummeting numbers for both the overall plan and Reid largely reflect a distaste by the public for the wheeling and dealing done to gain the 60 votes needed for the health reform bill to pass the Senate&hellip

Only 16 percent of Nevada voters approved of "concessions" and "compromises" fashioned by Democrats to gain the 60 votes needed in the Senate, while 72 percent disapproved.
"There is an overwhelming disdain for the process," said Erik Herzik, a political scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Just to show you how much Nevadans dislike the plan, 19 percent, nearly one-fifth, of those polled say they would pay a fine rather than go along with the government's mandate that they buy health insurance. The poll found that 88 percent of those surveyed say they have insurance now.