reserch paper due in 8 hours

It Doesn’t Affect Me: Media, Trust, and Knowledge

Effects on Support for

Healthcare Reform Sarah Albannay, Trevor Delaney, and Brianna

Pollard

Political Theory: Media Consumption

- Less likely to show support for ACA if they consumed conservative media - Most people who consumed almost any media did not have a good

understanding of the ACA.

Political Theory: Trust in Government

● When societal changes result in new programs being presented, these policies are the most vulnerable to exploitation of public distrust (Callaghan and Jacobs 2017).

● This distrust towards official government data relates back to trust in media, with higher distrust towards mainstream media sources being observed where counter-attitudinal media is the main source of information (Arceneaux et al 2012).

● Negative framing of policies such as the ACA have led to decreased levels of public trust towards these policies (Callaghan and Jacobs 2017).

● In general, public trust in healthcare policies is strongly tied to the media consumed (Arceneaux et al 2012).

Political Theory: Political Knowledge

● When a new government comes into power, it actually comes with a plan of how it will serve the citizens both the ones that vote it in and those that did not.

● Some political leaders claim that the whole issue of Affordable Care Act is not a well strategized healthcare policy that it was simply made with a political objective to create some legacy by the former government; the one that came with the idea (Bailey, Krieger, Agénor, Graves, Linos & Bassett, 2017).

● The current government actually has a plan which have been implemented to scrub the whole issue claiming that it is all irrelevant and of no benefit to the common citizens of the United States.

Research Question

Does media consumption, trust in government, and political knowledge affect support for healthcare reform?

Analytical Approach

Sarah

● Does media use, knowledge, and trust influence perceptions toward support for different healthcare policies?

○ Specifically how does it affect Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, and Medicaid expansion

● The distinction should be noted here that the Affordable Care Act is synonymous with Obamacare; however, our

research treated both of these as different variables in terms of measuring support for the policies.

● The Medicaid expansion policy we utilized for this study was the Idaho Proposition 2 Medicaid Expansion Initiative,

which was voted on in the state’s general election on November 6, 2018.

Analytical Approach continued...

● The duration of our survey in the field lasted from October 23, 2018 to November 1, 2018.

● Our subjects for this survey were students at Idaho State University who voluntarily elected to

participate in the study.

● We used a convenience sample for this study (but random sampling would have been preferred).

● This survey was conducted and administered by undergraduate and graduate students at Idaho

State University.

Independent Variables

- ACA subtracted from Obamacare - Do people understand the difference?

- Media - Trust - Knowledge - Insurance

Dependent Variables

ACA - Brianna

Medicaid Expansion- Trevor

Obamacare- Sarah

Controls

● Student Class ● ISU Class ● Number of Children ● Age ● Woman ● Married ● International Students ● White ● Religious Attendance ● Party ID ● Ideology

Results: Trust

Our expectations for our research were:

● a strong correlation between measured levels of distrust and a low overall approval for Medicaid expansion in Idaho as well as existing ACA policies.

● positive relationship between levels of trust in government and levels of support for Medicaid expansion

Trust Continued

The levels of trust for both the state government and the federal government showed no statistically significant correlation to support for Medicaid expansion. Those with higher levels of trust were no more or less likely to support Medicaid expansion.

Our control variables of party identification and ideology, only one of the variables was statistically significant. The more conservative an individual is, the less likely they are to support Medicaid expansion.

Figure 1: Medicaid Expansion Support Frequency

Results: Media

Source Affordable Care Act

Obamacare Medicaid Expansion

Fox - -

MSNBC

New York Times

Wall Street Journal

+ +

Results: Knowledge

Affordable Care Act Obamacare Medicaid Expansion

Knowledge of rules

Knowledge of substances

Knowledge players

Results: Controls Affordable Care Act Obamacare Medicaid Expansion

Student Class -

ISU Class

Number of Children - -

Age + +

Woman

Married -

International Students +

White

Religious Attendance

Party ID - -

Ideology - - -

Results: Insurance

Affordable Care Act Obamacare Medicaid Expansion

No Insurance

Parent’s Insurance + -

Satisfaction with access

Satisfaction with cost + +

Satisfaction with coverage

Discussion

- We did not get very many significant results for knowledge. Why? - We did not get very many significant results for trust. Why?

- Bias from college students at public university. Reported trust may not equate to actual belief. Media was more predictive than reported trust.

- We saw that there was a difference between Obamacare and the ACA. - Implications: People are stupid. IR students may just like Obama. Fox News Affect.

- Type of insurance or presence of insurance

Discussion: Medicaid Expansion

Type of media consumed:

● Consumers of MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal were no more or less

likely to support Medicaid expansion,

● Consumers of primarily Fox News stood out as significant. The viewers of Fox News and its

subsidiaries seem to have a less nuanced view of healthcare policies than viewers who get their

news from other media. In comparison to party identification, it is easier to predict support for

Medicaid expansion by whether or not someone watches Fox News.

● Belonging to a particular political party is less important than what media an individual is exposed

to.

Discussion: Medicaid Expansion Continued

Reported economic class:

● Higher reported class corresponds with lower support for Medicaid expansion in Idaho; this is not

surprising.

● The individuals who have a higher reported economic class may see themselves as separate from

the policies implemented with Medicaid expansion, and a therefore less likely to support them.

● Those individuals who are most likely to directly benefit from these programs will logically have

higher support for their implementation.

Further implications

● The ballot initiative for expanding Medicaid in Idaho, Proposition 2, passed on November 6 with over 60 percent support for the measure.

● The results of our study reflect similar support for Medicaid Expansion in Idaho

● Despite being passed, the Idaho Freedom Foundation has an ongoing lawsuit that will be heard by the Idaho Supreme Court challenging the legality of Proposition 2.

● This study could provide evidence for support against these legal challenges.