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President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid: Are You Listening?

From Gallup.com:

More Americans now say it is not the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage (50%) than say it is (47%). This is a first since Gallup began tracking this question, and a significant shift from as recently as three years ago, when two-thirds said ensuring healthcare coverage was the government’s responsibility.

In 2006, the survey found a 69%/28% split in favor of it being the federal government’s responsibility, or more than 2-1, the apex for statists on health care. In 2007 the gap narrowed to 64-33, and when Obama got elected a year ago, it had drifted to 54-41 — still better than Obama’s eventual margin of victory.

But somehow Gallup can’t connect the dots to figure out why people have changed what their thinking:

The reason behind this shift is unknown. Certainly the federal government’s role in the nation’s healthcare system has been widely and vigorously debated over the last several months, including much focus on the “public option.” These data suggest that one result of the debate has been a net decrease in Americans’ agreement that ensuring all Americans have healthcare coverage is an appropriate role for the federal government.

Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com has a good answer:

They’re ignoring the obvious, probably not deliberately but because they didn’t ask enough follow-up questions to determine it. People have begun seeing what the bill would be to deliver that kind of system — and not just in dollars and cents. It has costs in choice, in access, in options for care that only became clear when Democrats rushed to impose such a system on the US. Before 2008, the question existed almost entirely as an academic one, and people gave a response based on broad concepts and lazy thinking.

Also, Gallup ignores another significant factor. In late 2007, the economy and unemployment did not look bad at all, and deficit spending was too high but not historically out of the norms of post-war America. By 2008 that economic picture and deficit problem looked much worse, and in 2009 people have begun to realize that top-down government programs are the problem, not the solution.

So I will ask again: President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid: Are You Listening?