George Will stated that 80% of Americans prefer their private health insurance.
What was that based on and when was that data collected? What was the EXACT question asked?
The percentage of people HAVING "private health insurance" today is in itself so much smaller than when perhaps that data point was established (see below), I don't think it's ethical to have offered the audience that data point without qualifying it. It's misleading and it was unethical for him to have spoken that data point without adequate time to cite at least a modicum of proof and ABC needs to at least do its part to follow up on this (and not by some small print document posted in an obscure corner of this web site or at 2am in a news bit).
Some VERY important "data" and info that any viewer watching this should know in light of the above:
Data upon which the current healthcare reform idea is based is largely drawn from research done by a Celinda Lake. That research was done around 2006 and IT is problematic largely because the actual QUESTIONS asked in the focus group-type survey approach used was ambiguous. When Ph.D's from UC Berkeley, for example, asked the Lake group for the SPECIFIC questions that were used in the surveys, they declined to release citing they were "proprietary". People including reporters have asked and asked repeatedly for copies of the actual questions used and they have either failed to respond at all or they just cite the latter (trade secret business).
The biggest problem with it, aside from it's being outdated (2006 - prior to the loss of so many jobs and the accompanying loss of health insurance), is that we don't actually know whether the subject was asked precisely WHAT they were referring to when they specified they preferred a "CHOICE" - were they referring to a CHOICE of providers, MDs, clinics, etc. OR a "CHOICE" of insurance.
It doesn't take a cognitive science Ph.D. to see the hazard here and this is being questioned by many healthcare economists, some of whom are also MDs.
The catchphrase being used so often in describing healthcare reform ("quality affordable healthcare for all") grew out of this 2006 data I mention above.
The data that Will offered re the