Freedom Line Blog

Socialized medicine advocates curiously but persistently suggest that European models offer a superior alternative to the American healthcare system that relies more on private market forces and strong intellectual property rights.  Gallup offers an important corrective, even if unintentionally.  Whereas the percentage of Americans rating their healthcare as positive has remained within a high 76% to 83% window for years, Europeans consistently rate their healthcare satisfaction substantially lower, with only Germany matching American satisfaction levels:

Germany:  84% approve/15% disapprove

United Kingdom:  76% approve/22% disapprove

France:  74% approve/25% disapprove

Spain:  68% approve/31% disapprove

Italy:  51% approve/487% disapprove

That’s important to remember as calls for socialized medicine become louder amid the coronavirus pandemic and as November elections approach.

Gallup reports an encouraging upswing in American optimism amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with a plurality now stating that the situation is improving:

American Optimism Rising

Interestingly, however, Democrats stand as an exception.  Whereas they similarly expressed increased optimism, in recent days that trend has reversed.  We’ll leave it to others to speculate on what explains that:

With One Exception

More phenomenal news from Gallup.  Consumer spending accounts for approximately two-thirds of the U.S. economy, and economic confidence has now reached its highest point since 2000, when the mainstream media couldn’t stop talking about how great things were.  Thank you, deregulation and tax cuts.

.

Thank You, Tax Cuts and Deregulation

.

As an encouraging Image of the Day, rumors of conservatism’s demise have obviously been greatly exaggerated.  As illustrated by Gallup, the number of Americans labeling themselves “conservative” or “very conservative” has actually increased over the past three decades.  A significant 72% supermajority of Americans are either conservative or moderate, with conservatives actually leading the way with 37%:

.

Conservatives Outnumber Both Moderates and Liberals

.

In our Liberty Update commentary entitled “No, Scandinavia Doesn’t Vindicate Socialism” this week, we rightly ridicule admitted socialist Bernie Sanders, including his odd claim that “we now have an economy that is fundamentally broke and grotesquely unfair.”  Well, as this Gallup survey illustrates, he’s swimming upstream against American public opinion.  Specifically, in a survey that Gallup has conducted periodically since 2001, the public’s view of the job market has now hit an all-time record high:

Sorry, Socialists

Perhaps this helps explain why Sanders has suddenly plummeted in 2020 Democratic candidate surveys, although one wonders how long people like Elizabeth Warren can avoid the same fate.

Bad news, socialized medicine advocates.  The latest Gallup survey on the issue shows that Americans still overwhelmingly rate their healthcare as positive.

Notably, ratings have improved since Donald Trump replaced Barack Obama, and began chipping away at ObamaCare.

.

Bad News, Socialists

.

Socialized medicine advocates thus have their work cut out for them in selling their program to the American electorate.

Somehow, it has escaped mainstream media attention that public satisfaction with America’s direction has jolted upward by almost 40%, from 26% to 36%, since January 2017:

.

Right Track/Wrong Track Improves Dramatically Since January 2017

.

.

In our weekly Liberty Update, we highlight how in just one year, the deregulatory Trump economic bump is now so inescapable that even The New York Times acknowledged it in its January 1, 2018 edition.  Given that consumer spending accounts for approximately two-thirds of the U.S. economy, Gallup’s annual average U.S. economic confidence index is similarly illustrative.  For 2016, despite years of supposed prosperity under Barack Obama, the index stagnated at -10.  In just one year since Trump’s deregulatory and lower-tax administration began?  Already +6 for the year, the first time in over a decade:

.

Instant Trump Bump

.

From Gallup, confidence among American investors reaches its highest point since 2000.

Sidenote:  What explains that dramatic upward jolt from 40 in November of last year to 134 today?  We’ll probably never know.

American Investor Confidence Jumps

In November, Gallup’s monthly measure of Americans’ economic confidence stood at (-11).  It miraculously jumped to (+4) by December, and according to Gallup “remains considerably higher than it was before last year’s presidential election.”  How to explain that immediate jolt, not to mention the mainstream media’s conspicuous silence in favor of how many scoops of ice cream President Trump allows at the White House?  We’ll probably resolve that deep mystery.

.

American Economic Confidence

.

As we emerge from Memorial Day, Gallup has released a new poll that offers both encouraging and unsettling takeaways.

On the positive side, Americans overall remain extremely favorable toward all five military branches.  The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard receive “Very Favorable” ratings of 53%, 55%, 57%, 59% and 54%, respectively.  For anyone who remembers the post-Vietnam and Carter era malaise, that has to come as welcome news.

Unfortunately, it appears that even military esteem is subject to our deepening partisan divides:

Differences emerge, however, by political party, race and age.  Republicans, non-Hispanic whites and those aged 55 and older who are aware of each branch are much more likely to have strongly favorable views of each of the five branches than are Democrats, nonwhites or those younger than 35.  The biggest gaps in favorable opinion are between Republicans and Democrats (including those who lean to either party).  The largest is a 35-point difference in views toward the Navy, with 74% of Republicans versus 39% of Democrats having strongly favorable views…

Whatever one’s political affiliation, it would be a tragedy for the military to become another outlet for expression of partisanship.  We live in far too dangerous a world, and hopefully this gap diminishes soon.

In our latest Liberty Update, we highlight an extremely encouraging new Gallup poll showing that public support for our nation’s police forces jumped by a record amount over the past year.

On a different but not entirely unrelated issue, there’s similarly welcome news in the form of another Gallup release entitled “In U.S., Support for Assault Weapons Ban At Record Low.”  Gallup began polling on the issue 20 years ago, and opposition has skyrocketed from 42% to today’s 61%, while support for a so-called “assault weapons” ban has plummeted from 57% to today’s 36%:

Assault rifles have been a contentious issue in American life for decades.  Two years after President Bill Clinton signed a federal assault weapons ban in 1994, Gallup found that a solid majority of Americans favored such a ban.  By the time the 10-year ban expired in 2004, Americans were evenly divided.  And by 2011, public opinion had tilted against the assault weapons ban, with 53% opposed and 43% in favor.  In Gallup’s 2016 crime poll, conducted Oct. 5-9, opposition now exceeds support by 25 percentage points, 61% to 36%.”

Equally encouraging in today’s hyperpartisan atmosphere is the fact that opposition to an “assault weapons” ban is bipartisan, as well as shared by both gun owners and non-owners.

It’s understandable in today’s political and pop culture atmosphere to believe that the country, or the world more broadly, are descending to hell in a handbasket.  While that may be true regarding some of our political leadership and celebrity influences, the good news is that the resilient American public continues to show a welcome degree of better judgment.

As Barack Obama’s presidency sputters toward its end, there’s new bad news to report regarding his signature “achievement.”

As illustrated by an alarming new Gallup poll, ObamaCare has become a worsening disaster for Americans experiencing it personally.  To be sure, ObamaCare has been a public disapproval disaster since its inception.  But now, according to Gallup, a record number of Americans are reporting that it has personally worsened their healthcare:

Currently, 29% of Americans say Obamacare has hurt them and their family, up from 26% in May, and the highest Gallup has measured to date.  Meanwhile, the percentage who say the ACA has helped their family dropped from 22% to 18%.  The bulk of Americans, 51%, continue to say the law has ‘had no effect.’  As more provisions of the law have taken effect over the years, the ‘no effect’ percentage has dropped from the first reading of 70% in early 2012.”

Nancy Pelosi infamously claimed we must pass ObamaCare to find out what’s in it.  Well, Americans are finding out what’s in it firsthand, and they’re liking it even less.

On the heels of last week’s indefensible Supreme Court ruling upholding racial discrimination in university admissions (with Justice Kennedy bizarrely reversing his recent position on the other side of the question), there’s good news to report.  In a new Gallup poll, a surprising and overwhelming 70% to 26% majority of Americans believe that applicants should be admitted solely on merit.  Notably, that majority opposed consideration of race “even when it is explained that this could help increase diversity,” as Gallup emphasized:

Overwhelming Majority Opposes Racial Consideration

Although this lopsided disapproval won’t reverse last week’s Supreme Court error, it does suggest that a broad and rare consensus exists to systematically dismantle such discriminatory practices across federal, state and local levels.

In this week’s Liberty Update commentary “Captain America, Barack Obama and Surrender of U.S. Internet Authority” we highlight the Obama Administration’s uninterrupted pattern of foreign policy failure to illustrate one reason its plan to surrender oversight of the open Internet to the “international community” is a toxic idea.

Perhaps nothing better represents Obama’s record of failure better than Russia, where he and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bungled their infamous “Reset” attempt.  For all of its efforts to placate Vladimir Putin to the detriment of U.S. allies like Poland and Ukraine, a new Gallup survey shows that Russians’ approval of U.S. leadership has fallen to a record low of 1%:

Just 1% of Russians approved of U.S. leadership in 2015 – the worst rating in the world last year, and the lowest approval Gallup  has measured for the U.S. in the past decade.  Remarkably, this is even worse than their previous record low 4% approval in 2014.”

It’s as if Obama and Clinton should receive commemorative shirts reading, “I Caved to Russian Dictators and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.”   Regardless, neither Obama nor Clinton can claim a single substantive foreign policy success during their tenures.  It’s again something to keep in mind as the administration pursues its inexplicable goal of surrendering U.S. Internet oversight before he coasts into retirement and leaves the rest of us to deal with the consequences.

Don’t give up on American culture and run off to some deserted island or desolate wilderness hut just yet.  There’s still some good news to report.

According to a new Gallup survey, free enterprise, small businesses and capitalism remain far more popular among Americans than socialism or the federal government.  Despite the media kid-gloves treatment of admitted socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, only 35% of respondents say they maintain a positive view of socialism.  That is actually down from 2010 and 2012, when 36% and 39% reported positive feelings.  As for the federal government, which too many candidates from all parties continue to offer as some sort of elixir for what ails us, only 44% report positive feelings.  That is also down from 2010 and 2012, when 46% and 51% held it in high esteem.

So congratulations, Obama.  Not exactly the transformative presidency in the mold of Ronald Reagan to which you aspired.

Meanwhile, 85% of Americans report positive feelings toward free enterprise, 60% hold capitalism favorably despite constant sloganeering from the political left and an astonishing 96% hold small business in high esteem.

Now it’s just a matter of all of us doing a better job of putting those ideals into practice.

As 2015 draws to a close and the presidential election year of 2016 arrives, a new Gallup survey offers an overarching theme and context for the campaign.  Namely, after seven years of Barack Obama, who made it his goal to reverse Ronald Reagan’s legacy and rehabilitate Americans’ faith in big government, the public continues to identify it as the nation’s greatest threat:

Americans overwhelmingly name big government as the biggest threat to the country in the future.  The 69% choosing big government is down slightly from a high of 72% in 2013, the last time Gallup asked the question, but it is still one of the highest percentages choosing big government in Gallup’s 50-year trend.”

Notably, the percentage of Americans identifying big government as the nation’s biggest threat was just 35% in 1965, when the “Great Society” onslaught of spending and regulation and administrative state growth commenced.  Just as conspicuously, that percentage stood at 53% when Obama assumed office in 2009, but quickly shot upward to a record high of 72% as his own big-government agenda kicked into gear.

In addition to once again confirming Obama’s reverse-Midas touch, it demonstrates that the more that Americans get to know big government, the less we like it.  That provides an important lesson to frame the upcoming 2016 race.

As ObamaCare enters the real world and departs Barack Obama’s “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” fantasy world, it is already proving a slow-motion disaster for Americans.  This week, The Wall Street Journal featured a front-page article entitled “Rising Rates Pose Challenge for Health Law,” and the news is grim:

Insurers have raised premiums steeply for the most popular plans at the same time they have boosted out-of-pocket costs such as deductibles, copays and coinsurance in many of their offerings.  The companies attribute the moves in part to the high cost of some customers they are gaining under the law, which doesn’t allow them to bar clients with existing health conditions.  The result is that many people can’t avoid paying more for insurance in 2016 simply by shopping around – and those who try risk landing in a plan with fewer doctors and skimpier coverage.”

The report proceeds to describe the magnitude with greater specificity, and it is astonishing:

Premiums for individual plans offered by the dominant local insurers are rising almost everywhere for 2016, typically by double-digit percentage increases, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of plan data in 34 states where the Healthcare.gov site sells insurance.  More than half of the midrange ‘silver’ plans are boosting the out-of-pocket costs enrollees must pay, while more than 80% of the less-expensive ‘bronze’ plans are doing so.”

Meanwhile, a new Gallup survey released this week shows that the percentage of Americans rating their healthcare quality as excellent or good has plummeted from 62% in 2010 when ObamaCare was enacted to 53% now.  The survey also reveals that the percentage who are satisfied with healthcare costs has actually declined from 26% in 2009 to 21% today.

As experience with ObamaCare increases with implementation, the situation promises to get worse by the day.  Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi passed, now we’re staring at the reality of what was in it.

So it turns out that Barack Obama is succeeding in his effort to become a transformative president in the manner of Ronald Reagan after all.  Unfortunately for him, that’s because his presidency has reinforced rather than reversed Reagan’s axiom that “government isn’t the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”  Think of him as a Midas in reverse.

This morning, Gallup released a new survey on the question that it has asked Americans every year since 2002:  “Do you think the federal government has too much power, has about the right amount of power or has too little power?”  Hardened by almost seven years under Obama, the number who say that it has too much power maintains its record high:

The 60% recorded in this survey ties the previous high from 2013 for the question, which Gallup has asked annually since 2002.  The solid majorities in 2013, 2014 and this year saying the federal government is too powerful differ significantly from the 51% Gallup measured in 2012.  That poll was conducted in the days after the Democratic National Convention that helped propel Barack Obama to a re-election win that year.  During President Obama’s first year in office in 2009, the percentage of Americans concerned with the power of the federal government was 51%.  By his second year in office, 2010, that percentage climbed to 59%, after the federal government passed the Affordable Care Act.”

Perhaps the worst news of all for Obama, his apologists and dead-end leftists is that the groups accounting for the record high are Democrats, moderates and liberals.  Conservatives, libertarians and Republicans have regularly responded that the federal government possesses too much power.  “But now,” Gallup reports, “a majority of moderates (57%), as well as independents (64%), share that view.”

To the extent that Bill Clinton’s presidency was successful, it was because of his famous admission after electoral defeats that “The era of big government is over.”  Obama attempted a more hardened course, but that has only made his own presidency less successful and proved the wisdom of Clinton’s reluctant observation.

In recent weeks, as we enter the final 500 days of his presidency, we have periodically returned to the issue of Obama’s emerging legacy.  On both domestic and foreign policy, his administration has been one of unprecedented failure, which we take no glee in saying because in so doing he has harmed the country.

On that issue, however, a new Gallup survey highlights another one of Obama’s more notable failures.  Namely, the number of Americans who believe that the federal government poses “an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens” has reached a record high.  Accordingly, the fact that the man who set out to reverse Ronald Reagan’s axiom that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” has through his own actions brought Americans’ fear and distrust of the federal government to record highs.  Through his inexorable and at times lawless agenda of increased federal government power, regulation, spending, deficits and encroachment into our lives, he has paradoxically validated Reagan’s belief and undermined his own.

Although Obama’s impact on America’s wellbeing at home and abroad has been disastrous (quick – name a single significant place in the world that is better off today than six years ago), at least it provides the opportunity for Americans to understand the cause-and-effect relationship of bigger government, more regulation, higher spending, higher taxes and weaker foreign policy and our declining national health.  As Gallup notes, “the persistent finding in recent years that half of the population views the government as an immediate threat underscores the degree to which the role and power of government remains a key issue of our time.”

Hopefully, Americans quickly internalize the opposite lesson that Reagan provided, and act accordingly.