Poll Watchers: Health care and the deficit, consumer confidence, Title IX and polling Hispanics

• Health care and the deficit: As in most political battles, defining the terms makes a big difference. The latest Health Tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds 57 percent rejecting any spending reductions on Medicare as a way to reduce the federal deficit. But how potential changes to Medicare are described can result in widely differing reactions. Kaiser asked people who said they’d prefer to keep Medicare as is (a system of defined benefits) what they thought if changes lead to deficit reduction, more choice for seniors and greater competition among providers. Under this scenario, 54 percent of these people would support changing Medicare. But an alternative scenario was posed to people who initially wanted to change Medicare to a system of greater choice and competition. When confronted with the hypothetical scenario that such changes could result in greater individual costs and fewer benefits, 68 percent of these people said they’d prefer to keep Medicare as it is now.