Memo reinterprets health reform polls

Strategist Mark Mellman last week wrote a four-page memo to Democratic senators urging them to embrace the controversial health care bill that squeaked through the Senate.

It's a ray of light for Democrats worried about selling the health care overhaul in their home states and a bucket of cold water for Republicans looking to capitalize on what appears to be dismal support for such proposals in opinion polls.

In the memo, Mellman explains how poll coverage by many news outlets focuses on the number of people who say they are opposed. But the coverage often neglects to mention that many of those opposed think the overhaul doesn't go far enough. He also notes that once the overhaul is explained to people, they tend to support it. He also said a majority say they support some sort of health care change.

In describing a November AP/Ipsos poll that showed 46 percent oppose reform while 34 percent favor it, he describes how 12 percent opposed it because they think it doesn't go far enough.

The Review-Journal has reported dynamics similar to those Mellman describes at play in polls of Nevadans:

"Although a survey earlier this month by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research showed only 39 percent of Nevadans favored reform as proposed and 53 percent opposed it, the same poll showed some potential for reform to gain support.

"In a separate question, respondents were asked to identify what kind, if any, of health reform is needed. The result was 84 percent favoring some sort of intervention, 29 percent advocating a major overhaul; 39 percent wanting some changes to expand insurance availability and lower costs; and 16 percent favoring minor changes. Only 9 percent said, "The government should do nothing."

CANCER INSTITUTE AMENDMENT

An amendment that would have helped the Nevada Cancer Institute broaden its offerings didn't make its way into the Senate's version of health reform legislation, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

In September, Democratic Sens. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Robert Menendez of New Jersey sought to include an amendment to alter the way Medicare reimburses the Nevada Cancer Institute and three similar facilities.

The amendment was reported in the New York Times as a "rifle shot" amendment, a name given to legislation tailored to a specific issue.

The amendment would have allowed the facilities covered to be reimbursed based on the actual cost of treating Medicare patients, as opposed to applying pre-set reimbursements.

Adding the Nevada Cancer Institute to the exemption program, which has existed for decades, would have allowed the nonprofit center to put more money into research and care, spokeswoman Jennifer McDonnell said. The exemption is needed because the institute treats only cancer patients and does not have revenue streams used by typical hospitals to recoup costs, she said.

McDonnell said Nevada Cancer Institute CEO John Ruckdeschel and former CEO Sandra Murdock worked with the office of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to include Nevada Cancer Institute in the amendment.

But the effort wasn't enough to get formal consideration for the amendment from the Senate Finance Committee, McDonnell said. It wasn't included in the reform bill that got 60 votes early last Monday.

The institute will continue to seek support for what's known as a prospective payment system, or PPS, exemption.

Such an exemption "is critical to its being able to expand and financial(ly) sustain the types and level of oncology services needed in the state of Nevada," McDonnell said via e-mail.

OFF WITH THEIR THUMBS

There's at least one Nevadan hoping Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman doesn't run for governor and win.

That would be the 17-year-old kid in Reno who was recently busted and accused of 271 incidents of graffiti vandalism in Washoe County.

Goodman, in one of the many controversial statements of his career, has called for cutting off the thumbs of graffiti artists.

"I'm saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb," the mayor said in a 2005 interview on the subject of graffiti vandalism. "That may be the right thing to do."

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.