As ThinkProgress has noted before, conservatives have
frequently obscured the fact that Medicare is a government-run single-payer program. Constituents appearing at health care town halls have even demanded that their members of Congress keep their ?
government hands off of Medicare.? Now, a new Public Policy Polling poll finds that
millions of Americans do not realize that the federal government runs Medicare:
One poll question indicative of how difficult it is to gain public understanding on a complicated issue asked if respondents thought the government should ?stay out of Medicare,? something inherently impossible. 39% said yes.
The poll also shows that an additional 15% of respondents were ?
not sure? if the government should be involved in Medicare. Only 46% of respondents disagreed with the proposition that the government should stay out of the government-run program.
Update The poll also finds that
only 62 percent of respondents believe that President Obama was born in America. Of the 38 percent who either don't believe or are unsure, some think he was born in Indonesia, Kenya, the Philippines, or France. Six percent of the total poll respondents also don't think Hawaii is a U.S. state.