Skittish about surveys

Last weekend, I received a call on my cell phone from an unknown number. It was someone from Stanford University, of all places. He was conducting a survey about the public?s opinions on health care, and I was to be the next victim. He said the survey would last about 15 minutes. It lasted closer to 40.

    I must admit that I don?t know very much about health care policy. I?d venture to guess that most people know more about the subject than I do, which is a little bit embarrassing because I studied political science in college. I don?t recall studying specifically health care in any of my classes. In fact, I don?t think there were any health care bills before Congress during that era, so it was not a common topic of conversation.

    You can understand why, in light of all that, I would be reluctant to give my opinion to a pollster. The fact is that I?m not qualified to say very much of value on the subject. The pollster asked me if I was satisfied with my current coverage, if I thought health care cost too much, and if I thought health insurance providers were making too large a profit, and dozens of other questions over those 40 minutes.

    A few things about the survey struck me as odd. First of all, the pollster asked me to rate my approval of each individual policy with extreme precision. When asked how pleased I was with my health insurance, I was given what must have been seven possible responses such as ?very pleased,? ?fairly pleased,? ?somewhat pleased,? ?a little pleased,? etc. You get the idea. Since I haven?t gone to the hospital in two years, it?s difficult to distinguish between liking my health care ?a little? and liking it ?somewhat.?

    The other thing I found strange was that I was often left without an ?I don?t know? option. ?Will health care costs increase or decrease with a public option.? I don?t know. I haven?t researched it enough. On many of the questions regarding policy, I was forced to answer ?neither support nor oppose.? But that sounds like I?m indifferent between the two policy options.

    My answer gives the (misleading) impression that I think the options are equally good. In fact, I?m sure there are people who have researched health care and think there are as many benefits to a public option as negative reasons, so they?re indifferent between having it and not having it. That is not my position. But because of the way they phrased their questions, the pollsters have no way of separating respondents who are ambivalent for the reason I just described or ambivalent because they?re ignorant.

    And that?s why I don?t put much stock in survey results.