This has been reported extensively elsewhere (see here, for example), but lemme point out the Pew findings on who is aware, and unaware, of the recent gigantic health decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Who's clueless?  Survey says: young people. 

See the table below.  Among the youngest adults, 43 percent didn't know what the court decided.  As is the case with most forms of political knowledge, the accuracy somewhat increases with age and certainly the likelihood of saying "don't know" goes down.

Let's acknowledge that younger people are (1) less politically interested and (2) less interested specifically in health care given where they are in their life cycle and (3) are, yes, less politically interested.

Or, perhaps, they're less likely to guess?  There is research that suggests men are more willing to guess at a political knowledge question than women.  No evidence here of that.  Just making note of it.

Health and Social Media

There are a lot of ways to get health information -- from family, from friends, from the news media, from an actual living breathing doctor or nurse.  And, of course, there's that Internet thing.

Social media in particular are a growing source of health information, but ethical issues come up when doctors and patients use such avenues to connect, at least according to this story.  If you scroll to the story bottom you'll see an interesting bit of info on how much social media influence health care decisions. On a 1-to-5 scale, with "5" being high, 12 percent said it influences such decisions.  Twenty-one percent said a "1" meaning it never really has any influence.

I can see this.  In terms of what people know, especially about their own health, we often appeal to a "wisdom of the crowd," especially if in that crowd is our doctor, or any doctor, and others with some expertise, along with people who have the same shared problems.  It's the brave new health world.

Persistent Misperceptions: The Death Panels

When you mess with people's health care, there's always going to be trouble.  And misperceptions.  Take, for example, the death panel myth, the notion pushed by Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, and others that death panels would decide the fate of older folks if the Obama health care proposal made it through Congress.  A new paper published in The Forum gets at this health care myth.

There is an excellent Table 1 on page 9 that attempts to trace the history of the death panel myth.

If you don't want to follow the link, it begins with Betsy McCaughey on Fred Thompson's radio show (is there a Republican without a show?) on July 16, 2009, followed by a column by McCaughey in The New York Post a day later.  Sean Hannity picks up on it that same day, as does Laura Ingraham on her radio show.  Limbaugh arrives a few days later, and so on, including our future Speaker of the House on July 23 in a press release.  Palin is often credited for the myth, you betcha, but she doesn't repeat the myth until the following month, as does U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (my own congressional representative, and a bit of a fruitcake).  But Palin really ran with this one, despite two fact-checking web sites that point out she was wrong.  Never let pesky facts get in the way of a good narrative, I always say.

But there is no excuse for outright lying in an important debate, at least not in a perfect political world.  Or, as the paper's author argues:

As a result, until the media stops giving so much attention to misinformers, elites on both sides will often succeed in creating misperceptions, especially among sympathetic partisans. And once such beliefs take hold, few good options exist to counter them—correcting misperceptions is simply too difficult.

Recent research, for example, found that even when a news organization corrects a misperception, the result is to push some folks, based on their partisan predispositions, even further in the wrong direction and acceptance of an outright myth.  In other words, fixing it doesn't work, so partisans and journalists alike need to keep debate to the facts, not the myths.  And yeah, that's not gonna happen, especially from partisans who have air time to fill and are more than accepting of a certain moral flexibility when it comes to facts.

Hits of the Day

A few tidbits from the Net on what people know (or think they know).

• "If more Americans knew what was included in the healthcare reform law, more may support it, a U.S. survey indicates." Story here.
• "Middle-schoolers who are forbidden to watch R-rated movies are less likely to start drinking than peers whose parents are more lenient about such films, new research on 2,406 children shows." Story here.
• "According to a survey from Drug and Therapeutic Bulletin, many doctors are not very well informed on the subject of herbal medicines, and many don't want to be." Story here. 

I am the aggregator.

Okay, not a complete aggregator, and I have a system that scours the web for stuff like this, most of which I toss because I either don't understand it or it doesn't fit.  Mostly because I don't understand it.  On the three above, a few words.  The first, about health care (why one word?), this is not surprising.  People react to a phrase or a global term and Obamacare and all its scary alternatives are worse than when you break the law down to its basics.  Then people nod and say, "yeah, that's okay."  On the second, this one is kinda cool.  Who the hell lets a middle-schooler watch an R movie in the first place?  Idiots, who also don't teach their kids about drinking.  The final one I'm torn about, because honestly I don't want my doctor thinking about herbal medicines.  I want the good stuff.  The strong stuff.  Stuff from major pharmaceutical companies that feed the profit engine of the U.S.  Or at least were tested.

All are good examples of either knowledge, perceived knowledge, or a lack of knowledge.  Or in the case of R-rated movies, bad parenting. 

Even Docs Don't Know

Here's some confidence-building news.  Not only are we confused about the health cares system.  So are our future doctors.  This story (scroll down a bit on the link page) gives details of a study that finds, well, below you can read for yourself:

A study published in the September issue of Academic Medicine found that nearly half of all medical students believe they have been inadequately educated about the "practice of medicine" -- especially related to medical economics.

Feel sicker?  Try this:

But fewer than 50 percent of medical students said they believed they had received appropriate training in areas related to the profession they are prepping to enter.

Feeling worse?  I know I am.

I suppose it's possible lots of other professional schools face the same problem.  Wouldn't it be good to know pharmacists are baffled while spooning out your pills?  And engineers?  And journalists?  Okay, the latter is less likely to kill ya, but I expect this is why doctors have office managers, to understand all the health care stuff they don't understand.

Labor Day Slide

When there is a relatively new president, Labor Day becomes something of a touchstone in how the job is going.  As the graph to the right shows, Obama is doing lousy compared to some,  but better than others.  Graph from this NYTimes story.

Ford?  Easily explained by Watergate and the pardoning of Nixon, so let's set that one aside.  Clinton's slide?  Well, it's before a stained blue dress, so I'm guessing it was the gays in the military thing -- but that's just a guess without taking the time to look it up.

Does this slide mean much?  Not really.  Clinton was easily re-elected.  Carter had no real change and he was defeated.  But in terms of what people think, the Obama folks have to worry about momentum and the perception in the public that he's failed to follow through with his promises.  The health care debate is weighing down his presidential approval ratings, but that's not going to go away.  The talk radio guys slam him every day but relatively few people (20 or so million, already Obama haters) pay attention.

Public perception is fickle.  Right now, if I had to guess on what people know about the presidency of Barack Obama, it's that he's not doing as well as they'd hoped.  Maybe their expectations were too high after Bush.

People Know -- That They're Confused

A new CBS News poll finds that two-thirds of Americans are confused about the whole health care debate.  A pdf of the entire poll is here.

No doubt the screaming in town halls, the wailing of talk radio hosts, and the frothing by Fox News guys has generated some of the confusion -- as has the inability of the Obama Administration or Congress to explain this in a clear, coherent manner.  Still, more people (49 percent) think the town hall protesters do not reflect the views of most Americans.  Forty-one percent think they do.  The breakdown falls along unsurprising partisan lines, there are just more people identifying themselves as Dems today than GOPers. 

And folks kinda blame Obama.  Three out of five Americans think he's not done a good job explaining all health care reform.  His overall approval ratings have also dropped.  A lot.  He's gone from a high of 77 to 55 in approval, according to this site.  He's also as low as 51 percent, according to the same site, different page.

Polls and Health Care

The health care debate? I'd love to avoid this one, what with all the town halls and screaming and lies and damn lies and occasional statistics, but here I am, writing about it.

So I'm skimming the polls about health care and a couple of them stick out for lots of -- as you'll see -- obvious reasons.

Here they are:

• Fox News has polls that show in July, 36 percent, and in August, 34 percent, favor health care reform legislation.
• CNN has polls that show in June, 51 percent, and in July/August, 50 percent favor health care reform legislation.

Huh?

When attempts to find out what people think turn out so differently, we often look at how the sample was drawn or how the questions were asked. I've little time to get into the sampling thing (but it looks okay), so let's look at the questions.

CNN: "From everything you have heard or read so far, do you favor or oppose Barack Obama's plan to reform health care?"

FOX: "Based on what you know about the health care reform legislation being considered right now, do you favor or oppose the plan?"

No real difference that I can see, which is troubling. Is it coincidence that FOX's poll seems negative and CNN's poll seems positive toward health care reform? I dunno, but I'd love to see the order of the questions -- what came before these and how they may have primed the responses. There's something fishy here, on one side or the other.