Yes, Florida Voters Oppose ObamaCare’s Medicaid Expansion

Bloomberg’s Josh Barro criticizes the James Madison Institute’s poll showing that 65 percent of Florida voters oppose implementing ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion. Barrow is mostly wrong. But even when he’s right, he’s still wrong. Disclosure: I helped JMI formulate their poll questions.

Barro complains that JMI conducted a “push poll.” His first complaint is:

It starts by priming respondents with questions about the national debt and the size of Florida’s existing Medicaid budget.

Then it gives an inaccurate description of the terms of the expansion. Poll respondents were told that Medicaid currently covers people earning up to 100 percent of the federal poverty line. That’s not true: In Florida, the limit for adults is 56 percent of FPL, and you must have dependent children to qualify.

Though Barro slightly mischaracterizes the poll question, he is basically correct, and the inaccuracy is my fault.

The folks who originally drafted JMI’s poll questions aren’t health care wonks, so they ran their questions by me. This question was originally worded the way Barro claims the final question was: “Medicaid coverage is currently available for those with incomes up to 100% of the poverty line.” I hurriedly emailed the JMI folks, “Florida does not offer Medicaid coverage to everyone below 100 percent of poverty. See page 2 and table 3 of this report. You might replace ‘currently’ with ‘generally.’” So that’s what JMI did. In retrospect, Barro is right. “Generally” gives the impression that Medicaid is available to more Floridians below the poverty line than is actually the case, and I should have offered a better edit. Mea culpa.

His next complaint is not accurate: