On Saturday, June 19th in San Francisco the Service Employees International Union hosted a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge and a Festival at Crissy Field in support of Health Care for All and a Single Payer Government sponsored Health Care Insurance Program to fund health care for all Americans. In our April-May, 2004 poll, Retro Poll found 71% public support for this demand. Retro Poll committee members and supporters distributed 1,500 of the following leaflets to the 5-10,000 people who attended this Bridge Walk.

What We Don't Know Will Hurt Us

The Public Wants National Health Insurance
but it wants a whole lot more than that too...

Report from Retro Poll:
to the Golden Gate Bridge Walk for Health Care for All
by Marc Sapir, MD, MP
Executive Director, Retro Poll
marcsapir@comcast.net

It's not news that many polls show a large majority of Americans want a national health insurance program that covers everyone. But have you heard that thirty nine percent of Americans believe there are grounds to impeach George W. Bush? That's something the "free press" in the U.S.A. won't let you hear, see, or know. Results of Retro Poll's November, 2003 national poll suggested that 40% of Americans find President Bush's deceit about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq grounds for his impeachment. A follow up poll in April/May, 2004 again showed that 39% of people polled (a random sample of 513 from all over the U.S.) find this deception grounds for impeachment. Among many startling findings in our poll this was the most dramatic. But the corporate media ignored these findings. That's partly because our polls aren't just about George Bush. Retro Poll exposes both the extent to which the media colludes with the agenda of those in power and how the media uses polls to make us believe that we think what they want us to think.

The truth is that Americans are angry at media distortions, government lies and the undermining of U.S. democracy that results. And people don't trust the media because the media suppresses public debate about our country's turn toward fascism with the removal of government's role as a defender of the public interest and provider of public needs and services such as housing, health care, education and energy.

Retro Poll has so many interesting findings about the public's real, rather than fabricated views, that it is shameful that our work can not get into the mainstream media. We've found strong support for a moratorium on the death penalty until its unfair application can be investigated. We've found strong support for an investigation of the U.S. role in backing the coup against the elected President of Haiti, the only nation of African Americans in the Americas. We've found overwhelming opposition to the use of torture (80%) as U.S. policy. We've found that most people support a national health insurance plan for all--and so much more, when we ask questions in an intelligent way.

Please go to our web site and learn how our polling methods differ from those of Gallup and the other polls you hear about on TV, radio and the newspapers. Read our reports on how the major polls are used to intentionally distort public opinion and mislead us. Join our e-mail list and become a supporter of our work. We're at www.retropoll.org