Los Angeles + Public Option = <3

In research for a class project, I deployed a two-pronged survey, utilizing both paper and online versions to reach the most people possible. The online version obviously reaches a more limited crowd, as it's limited by who's following me on Twitter and who happens to be in my email address book, but I cast a much larger net with my surveys distributed by hand.

To reach the broadest possible audience, I set up shop outside the LA Municipal Courthouse on Grand, just south of downtown. I figured this would draw people from the greatest geographical area and personal background, since everyone gets parking tickets and jury duty summons. To figure out which demographics were most supportive of the public option, I asked about race, education, and household income. A Spanish version of the survey made sure that I could get even more diversity in respondents.

So! Who likes it most? Everybody, apparently. LA is a coastal Californian city, which obviously leans to the left, but I had a grand total of one respondent who was philosophically opposed to the public option. Besides him, everyone from the Hispanic mother with 2 children to the fellow striding to his Mercedes, bluetooth earpiece abuzz, thought it would be a great way to bring down costs. I was surprised by the number of respondents that said health care was a moral imperative: regardless of their thoughts on the free-market system, health services for citizens were broadly seen as the responsibility of the state and a necessity. Thus, affordable premiums and broad coverage took precedence and support was nearly universal.

This was honestly surprising to me. I mean, I feel that way, too, but I make an effort not to say that "health care is a Right." That never makes constructionists very happy. I had several good conversations with folks that made it clear that laziness is not a factor, here. It's sadly argued that everyone should just go get a job for employer coverage, but anyone who's tried to find a new job right now knows just how fallacious that argument is. If jobs are not available, what are the alternatives? If people's budgets are already stretched as far as they can go between rent and food, there is no option but to lower costs. Regardless of how much people stated they had followed the ongoing debate, they grasped the urgency of the situation (in my far-from-unbiased opinion).

The opinions expressed online were very similar, but that was no surprise. Distributing my survey that way selected for my fellow college students, but I assumed that they would have a more liberal, idealistic outlook. Apparently not, though! If nothing else, I figured that the folks leaving the courthouse would have a chip on their shoulder regarding bureaucracy, having just dealt with some petty fine or a day of jury duty. Instead, they differed to the government on making health care affordable and accessible.

Unfortunately this limits what I could possibly write about for my school project; there don't seem to be any convenient demographic lines to draw, and I don't get to call poor people selfish or rich folks heartless or make any convenient generalizations.
Bringing in competition just rocks too hard, apparently. Let's do this.