A failure to inform

People are still talking about yesterday's poll that showed, among other things, that 76 percent of respondents supported a public option for health care. However, the results were mixed as they refined the questions.

In the same NBC/WSJ poll, only 33 percent of respondents said they thought the president's health care plan, to the extent they knew of it, was a "good idea;" 32 percent said it was a bad idea.

In short: the administration has yet to complete the sale. An additional 30 percent of the public had no opinion of Obama's proposal for reform. But when read a description of the general outline -- requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, an employer mandate, tax credits for lower income families to buy coverage, and tax increases on wealthier Americans to pay for it - the number of respondents in support rose to 55 percent.

That's wrong. It's not Obama's failure to sell the public option so much as it is a failure of the media to explain it. The numbers make it clear that the average voter who isn't obsessed 24/7 with following politics simply doesn't know the details of the plan. This is obviously because the media is too effin' busy reporting the politics of the negotiations instead of the particulars of the proposals. Which is supposed to be -- you know -- their job. Yet they profess to wonder why young people go to the internets and comedy shows for their information? Brings up the perennial question -- are they stupid or just lazy?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]