Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Shimanski praises survey, DFL objects

Ah, McLeod Chronicle letter day!

Rep Ron Shimanski writes about his survey. "Survey painted clear picture".

Really? I'd say it painted a tainted picture because of the biased survey.
Respondents replied at an overwhelming 88 percent rate they prefer a health care system that includes things like freedom and choice, privacy and security, and no government take-over.

Gaining only 12 percent of your support is a health care model that includes higher taxes and potential care rationing in a single-payer model.

With such biased questions, I'm surprised 12% of the people read through the rhetoric.

You can distort the situation pretty easily by asking the question in a biased manner.

Ask 50 3rd graders if they want to spend a cold winter holiday all dressed up with their sister or if they would rather have a day off from school in February, to go sledding.

The majority would select sledding.

Add Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr Day to each of those situations, the response will change markedly.

Shimanski's survey was biased.

McLeod County DFL Chair, John Hassinger responds.
A recent questionnaire mailed and put in the area Shopper by State Rep. Ron Shimanski, R-Silver Lake, asked for people to respond to a series of questions about health care, taxes, transportation, etc.

Attempts to gain citizen input are important; asking leading questions to get the answers you want is not fair and does not allow a full range of opinions.

An open, fair discussion of issues is vital to our democracy, leading questionnaires don't get us there. Rep. Shimanski, you can do better.

Additionally, we would be interested in how much taxpayer money was used to create, print, distribute and tabulate the results?

We'll anxiously await Shimanski's response telling us the survey was not biased...

1 comment:

Alec said...

If you can, ask Shimanski this survey question:

"would you rather have your taxes raised by 2% and have universal health care, or pay 25% of your salary so that Health Partners can choose your doctor."

Because that is the true situation. The plan I have read about raises employer tax 7% and individual 2%.
Under the current system my wife and I both have college degrees and professional jobs with benefits that still cost us 25% of my salary, and our Docs have to be Health partners.