6/30: Paterson’s Approval Rating Still in the Tank

The news for Governor David Paterson remains grim.  The governor’s approval rating is an abysmal 21%, and with the New York State Senate in disarray, nearly half of the state’s electorate says they disapprove of the way in which the governor is handling the situation while 43% approve.  To make matters even worse, more than six in ten registered voters disapprove of the way Paterson is dealing with the state’s economic crisis.

How bad is Governor Paterson’s political situation?  The answer is pretty bad.  According to The Marist Poll’s new statewide survey, about one in five registered voters in New York — 21% — report that Governor Paterson is doing either an excellent or good job in office.  Voters’ view of the governor’s job performance is little changed since The Marist Poll last asked this question in May.  At that time, 19% of voters gave Paterson’s job performance above average marks.  And, the governor still does not receive affirmation from a major share of voters within his own party.  However, he has received a slight bump among Democrats in New York State.  28% believe Governor Paterson is doing an excellent or good job in office.  This compares with the 22% of Democrats he received in May.

Table: Paterson Approval Rating

Paterson’s Image Still Muddied: Leadership Skills Questioned…Half Disapprove of Handling of NYS Senate Situation

So, just what do registered voters in New York State think of Governor David Paterson?  Overall, a majority of the electorate perceives the governor as a weak leader.  65% of voters say he is not a good leader for the state while 31% disagree.  Much like Paterson’s approval rating, the governor’s leadership rating has stagnated since Marist’s May survey.

The chaos in the New York State Senate has not helped Governor Paterson’s image.  Nearly half of voters disapprove of the way in which Paterson is handling the situation while 43% believe he is dealing with it appropriately.  Members of Paterson’s own party are divided over the governor’s approach.  47% of Democrats approve while 45% disapprove.  60% of Republicans say Paterson should be handling the matter differently.  There is a slight difference of opinion among voters in different regions of the state.  While nearly half of voters in New York City and a majority of those in the suburbs disapprove of how Governor Paterson is addressing the situation in the State Senate, voters Upstate divide.  48% of these voters would like a different course of action taken while 46% approve of Paterson’s methods.  Looking at the way things work, in general, in Albany, 68% say Governor Paterson is not changing government in Albany for the better while 27% think he is.  Governor Paterson received similar marks on this question back in May.

The state’s economic situation is still a major issue facing Governor Paterson, and voters say they are not satisfied with how he is managing it.  61% of the electorate disapproves of the governor’s attempts to address the economic crisis while 31% approve.  This is a slight improvement since May when 68% of voters disapproved of how the governor was dealing with the state’s economic crisis.

Is Paterson perceived as a governor who cares about the average person?  Voters are currently divided with 47% who agree with the statement that Paterson cares about people like them and 47% who disagree.  Paterson has slightly improved in this area.  Two months ago, a majority of New York State voters — 51% — reported the governor is not in tune with voters.

Table: Paterson is a Good Leader for NYS

Table: Paterson’s Handling of NY Senate Situation

Table: Paterson Is Changing the Way Things Work In Albany for the Better

Table: Paterson Handling Economic Crisis

Table: Paterson Cares About People Like You

Charter a New Course…Nearly Three-Quarters Say NY State Moving in the Wrong Direction

74% of registered voters in New York State are not optimistic about where the state is going.  This compares with 21% who believe things in the Empire State are moving along the right track.  Voters’ view of the state’s status has gotten dimmer.  In Marist’s May survey, 27% had a positive outlook on the state’s direction, and 67% thought the state was moving along the wrong path.

Table: NYS Direction Table

Marist Poll Methodology

Lee Miringoff discusses the effect the Albany unrest is having on David Paterson and other New York politicians:

Related Stories:

6/30: Paterson’s Gubernatorial Prospects: Inches Closer to Giuliani…Dead Heat with Lazio

6/30: NY State Senate Unrest Does Not Sit Well With Voters

6/30: Two-Thirds Approve of Cuomo’s Job Performance

6/30: DiNapoli’s Approval Rating Consistent…Steady at 32%

Complete June 30, 2009 NYS Poll Release and Tables

Complete May 4, 2009 NYS Poll Tables

6/30: Paterson’s Gubernatorial Prospects: Inches Closer to Giuliani

Governor David Paterson has an uphill battle ahead of him when it comes to next year’s gubernatorial election in New York State.  Here is how he fares in a couple of hypothetical matchups.  The good news for Paterson is that he has inched closer to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. However, if the election were held today, Paterson receives 37% of the electorate compared with 54% for Giuliani.  In The Marist Poll’s May survey, Paterson had 32% of the electorate’s support compared with 56% for Giuliani.

When Governor Paterson is pitted against former U.S. Representative Rick Lazio, the two remain in a statistical dead heat.  However, Paterson has gained a little ground.  In this hypothetical pairing, Paterson currently garners 41% of registered voters in New York State while the Republican nets 40%.  19% are unsure.  Two months ago, the same proportion of registered voters in the state said they would support Lazio while 37% reported they would back Paterson.  At that time, 23% were unsure.

Table: Paterson/Giuliani 2010 Matchup
Table: Paterson/Lazio 2010 Matchup

Cuomo Stands Strong Against Paterson in 2010 Democratic Primary for Governor

Looking ahead to next year’s Democratic primary for governor in New York, the state’s Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, is a force to be reckoned with.  If the primary were held today, Cuomo would easily defeat Governor Paterson with 69% of New York State Democrats saying they would support Cuomo and 24% reporting they would back Paterson.  In May, 70% said they would vote for Cuomo, and 21% stated they would cast their ballot for Paterson.

Table: 2010 Democratic Primary — Paterson/Cuomo

Giuliani Garners GOP Support for 2010

Who is the stronger Republican candidate to square off in the 2010 gubernatorial race?  If next year’s Republican primary were held today, Rudy Giuliani would defeat Rick Lazio by more than four to one.  77% of Republicans would vote for Giuliani compared with 16% for Lazio.  Both potential candidates received similar support in Marist’s May survey.

Table: 2010 Republican Primary

Cuomo Leads Competition in Hypothetical Gubernatorial Contests

If New York State Attorney General were to win the Democratic nomination for governor, Cuomo would be New York’s next governor.  In a hypothetical contest against Rick Lazio, Cuomo defeats Lazio by three to one.  68% of the state’s electorate would vote for Cuomo while Lazio receives 22% of the vote.  Even a plurality of Lazio’s own party — 48% — said they would back his Democratic opponent.  This is little changed from Marist’s last survey.

But, when pitted against Rudy Giuliani, the race against Cuomo is tighter, but Cuomo would still beat Giuliani.  A slim majority — 51% — report that Cuomo would be their candidate of choice compared with 43% who would prefer Giuliani.  In May, Cuomo led Giuliani 55% to 38%.

Table: Cuomo/Lazio
Table: Cuomo/Giuliani

Marist Poll Methodology

Related Stories:

6/30: Paterson’s Approval Rating Still in the Tank…Voters Dissatisfied with Handling of NYS Senate Situation

6/30: NY State Senate Unrest Does Not Sit Well With Voters

6/30: Two-Thirds Approve of Cuomo’s Job Performance

6/30: DiNapoli’s Approval Rating Consistent…Steady at 32%

Complete June 30, 2009 NYS Poll Release and Tables

Complete May 4, 2009 NYS Poll Tables

6/30: NY State Senate Unrest Irks Voters

The unrest in the New York State Senate has topped the state’s political headlines, and not only have voters been listening, they are not happy.

76% of registered voters statewide have heard, at least, a good amount about the current chaos in the Senate.  This includes 31% of voters who have heard a great deal about the situation.  And, voters say they just don’t think their elected officials have their best interests at heart.  A whopping 84% of registered voters report that, from what they have heard, the situation is nothing more than a political power play.  In fact, just 12% view the wrangling as a serious effort to bring reform to Albany.  The sentiment that the Senate dispute is for political gain transcends party lines with 88% of Democrats, 80% of Republicans, and 82% of non-enrolled voters echoing this argument.

So, overall, how do voters feel about the Senate battle?  To put it bluntly, many are mad.  Seven in ten voters say they are angry about the unrest while 25% say they are not. Again, this feeling crosses party lines.  72% of Democrats and 69% Republicans express this emotion while 66% of non-enrolled voters say the same.

Table: Heard About NY State Senate Situation

Table: Description of NY State Senate Situation

Table: Angry About NY State Senate Situation

Nearly Two-Thirds Report Poor Job Performance of NY State Senate…Paterson Not Immune from Backlash

65% of New York State registered voters say the job the New York State Senate in Albany is doing is a poor one.  Just 11% of the state’s electorate says the legislative body is doing either an excellent or good job.  And, while Democrats and Republicans may not agree about their overall political ideas, they do agree that the Senate’s performance is shoddy.  64% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans view the Senate’s performance as poor.  67% of non-enrolled voters agree.

With Governor David Paterson’s approval rating at 21%, a Senate battle is probably one of the last things he needs on his plate.  So, how do voters view his handling of the situation? Nearly half of the state’s electorate disapproves of his efforts.  43% approve.

Table: NY State Senate Job Approval Rating

Table: Paterson’s Handling of NY State Senate Situation

Playing the Blame Game & Long-Term Effects

When it comes to pointing a finger at who’s to blame for the current Senate fiasco, voters divide.  38% say it’s the Democrats while 39% put the onus on the Republicans.  23% are unsure.  Not surprisingly, majorities within both the Democratic and Republican parties blame their rival party.  Non-enrolled voters divide.  Breaking down the numbers by region, a plurality of voters in New York City — 47% — blames the Republicans.  A plurality in the suburbs — 46% — points a finger at the Democrats.  Upstate voters divide with 40% blaming the Republicans and 37% blaming the Democrats.

Looking down the road, 61% of the New York State electorate believes the Senate will be less effective in the future as a result of the current battle in the chamber.  31%, however, believe the body will be more effective.  61% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans view the impact on the Senate’s future actions as negative while 66% of non-enrolled voters concur.

Table: Blame for NY State Senate Situation

Table: Long-Term Effect of NY State Senate Battle

Slim Majority View NY State Assembly As Doing Poor Job
Although the New York State Assembly has remained mostly out of the spotlight during the Senate battle, New York State voters aren’t cutting them any slack.  51% of the New York electorate views the Assembly’s job performance as poor, and just 18% say the legislative body is doing either an excellent or good job.  A majority of Republicans – 58% — compared with Democrats — 44% — say the Assembly needs to shape up.  54% of non-enrolled voters report the New York State Assembly is doing a poor job.  Looking across the state, more voters Upstate and in the suburbs give the body a subpar rating compared with those living in New York City.

Table: NY State Assembly Job Approval Rating

Marist Poll Methodology

Related Stories:

6/30: Paterson’s Approval Rating Still in the Tank…Voters Dissatisfied with Handling of NYS Senate Situation

6/30: Paterson’s Gubernatorial Prospects: Inches Closer to Giuliani…Dead Heat with Lazio

6/30: Two-Thirds Approve of Cuomo’s Job Performance

6/30: DiNapoli’s Approval Rating Consistent…Steady at 32%

Complete June 30, 2009 NYS Poll Release and Tables

Complete May 4, 2009 NYS Poll Tables

6/30: 67% Approve of Cuomo’s Job Performance

Once again, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo receives high marks among registered voters in New York State.

67% of the state’s electorate thinks he is doing either an excellent or good job in office while just 5% report that he is doing a poor job.  Cuomo’s approval rating has been rock solid.  In the Marist Poll’s May survey, 70% viewed his performance as above average.  In March, he enjoyed a 71% job approval rating.

Table: Cuomo Approval Rating

Marist Poll Methodology

Related Stories:

6/30: Paterson’s Approval Rating Still in the Tank…Voters Dissatisfied with Handling of NYS Senate Situation

6/30: Paterson’s Gubernatorial Prospects: Inches Closer to Giuliani…Dead Heat with Lazio

6/30: NY State Senate Unrest Does Not Sit Well With Voters

6/30: DiNapoli’s Approval Rating Consistent…Steady at 32%

Complete June 30, 2009 NYS Poll Release and Tables

Complete May 4, 2009 NYS Poll Tables

6/30: DiNapoli’s Approval Rating Steady

32% of New York State registered voters give New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli high marks for his job performance.  That’s the proportion of voters who report DiNapoli is doing either an excellent or good job in office.

In The Marist Poll’s May survey, DiNapoli received the exact same job approval rating.  However, more voters have formed an opinion about DiNapoli now.  Currently, 28% say they do not know how to rate him.  This compares with 36% who thought that way two months ago.

Table: DiNapoli Approval Rating

Marist Poll Methodology

Related Stories:

6/30: Paterson’s Approval Rating Still in the Tank…Voters Dissatisfied with Handling of NYS Senate Situation

6/30: Paterson’s Gubernatorial Prospects: Inches Closer to Giuliani…Dead Heat with Lazio

6/30: NY State Senate Unrest Does Not Sit Well With Voters

6/30: Two-Thirds Approve of Cuomo’s Job Performance

Complete June 30, 2009 NYS Poll Release and Tables

Complete May 4, 2009 NYS Poll Tables

6/25: Kids Today More Difficult to Raise…Teens Most Troublesome

Most U.S. residents — 83% — believe it’s harder to raise a child today than it was in previous generations.  This includes eight in ten households with children younger than 18.

Although more than three-quarters of Americans across the age spectrum say the current generation is more difficult to bring up, older Americans tip the scales.   A whopping 90% of those 60 years of age or older think this is the case, 82% between the ages of 45 and 59 agree, and 79% of Americans 30 to 44 years old share this view.  A similar proportion of residents 29 years old or younger — 78% — say this is true.

And, just which age group is considered to be the most challenging?  Two thirds of Americans — 66% — say it’s the teen years.  16% believe the pre-teen years are the most trying while 7% think toddlers and preschoolers put adults through their paces.  Perhaps, surprisingly, fewer Americans with minors in their household — 62% — compared with 69% of those without them say the teen years are the hardest for child rearing.

Younger Americans, though, say, “Hey!  We’re not so bad!”  Just 47% of those 18 to 29 think the teen years are the most troublesome.  Perhaps they’ll change their minds when they live through those years again with their own kids.  66% of Americans 30 to 44 and 67% of 45 to 59 year olds view teens as most trying.  77% of those 60 and older agree.

Table:  Easier to Raise Child Now?

Table:  Most Difficult Time to Raise Child

Marist Poll Methodology

Related Stories

6/25: Parenting Advice from the Trenches

6/25: Parenting Advice from the Trenches

Kids…when it comes to parenting, even the littlest angels can be devils.  In her new book, 13 is the New 18, author and Associated Press columnist and editor, Beth Harpaz, shares her experiences raising a trying teenager.  When Harpaz spoke with The Marist Poll’s John Sparks, she offered her insights, advice, and reassurance to parents that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  The transcript to the interview is below.

Beth Harpaz (Photo Credit: Tina Fineberg)

John Sparks
Beth, the Marist Poll conducted a national survey and asked folks which stage they thought was the most difficult to raise a child. Not surprisingly, two-thirds responded that teens from 13 to 19 were the most challenging.  Now, regardless of the region of the country, the income, the education, the race, age, gender, the respondents overwhelmingly agreed.  Now does this surprise you?

Listen to the Interview, Part 1:

Beth Harpaz
Not at all. It doesn’t surprise me at all. I mean, I think when they’re little, in some ways you’re more prepared emotionally for how hard it is physically. You’re up in the middle of the night. You’re changing diapers. You’re dealing with tantrums. They’re starting in school.  But, I think there’s a lot more support for parents at the stage. If you’re a mom or even a dad, you’re going to the playground, and you’re commiserating with the other parents, and you’re trading advice on: oh, I have a colicky baby.  Well, nobody blames you if you have a colicky baby.  They might offer advice, but they’re not going to judge you for it.  But, if you have a teenager who is yelling at you on the street or in a mall or failed a class and has to go to summer school or gets in trouble or talks back to grandma, people do judge you as the parent, and that’s very difficult.  You don’t get that kind of support.  People are very secretive about their problems they have with teenagers.  They’re afraid to tell the other moms, “Oh gosh, I don’t know what to do with this kid.  He’s driving me nuts.”  So, I think part of it is the isolation that we have to deal with these problems by ourselves.

John Sparks
Well, an even greater percentage of the respondents said that it’s harder to raise a child now than in previous generations.  Why do you think this is so?

Beth Harpaz
Well, you know it’s interesting. I mean people who have teenagers now, they’re probably, what, in their late 30s/40s/early 50s, majority of them I would guess, and so, a lot of these folks grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, and I think maybe a lot of us, myself included, I’m 48, born in ‘61, so, I was little girl in the ’60s and a teenager and college student in the ’70s, I think we thought that we were the worst teenagers, you know that we were out there doing everything, that we know all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, so there’s nothing a kid could throw at us that would freak us out.  Well, guess what?  You know, they always manage to find something. I mean now as parents we have a different kind of generation gap with our kids.  They’re so into the technology, and they know so much more about it than we do.  They can outsmart us every time, and they’re constantly coming up with something new — the texting; the IM’ing; the websites, the Facebook, the MySpace; the cells phones; the laptop. I mean you can’t even get a kid’s attention because they’re plugged into so many things. They’ve got things in their ears and their fingers are attached to something else, and they’re looking at the screen, and the phone is beeping and texting and all this stuff.  You can’t even have a conversation with them they’re so plugged into stuff.  So, I think at least for me, I have a 16-year-old and an 11-year-old, and I honestly thought it would be easier because I thought well, I know everything about being a teenager. There’s no generation gap now, and then all of sudden there was one.  So, part of it was the surprise.

John Sparks
Beth, it’s really interesting.  My kids are grown. They’re in the 30’s, and the thing that struck me in reading that book was the difference that technology has created.  When my kids were in their teens, there were no cell phones.  It’s almost like you want to have that connection with them so that you know that they’re okay, and yet the technology that enables you to keep them under surveillance, if you will, is the same technology that enables them to go off in different directions and disconnect with you as a parent.

Listen to Part 2:

Beth Harpaz
That’s right, and of course, there’s a lot of fear.  Parents have a lot of fear of what’s out there on the Internet. I mean, I try not to be a fear monger.  I try not to get hysterical about child predators on MySpace.  Oh my God.  But, it’s actually a symbol of an issue that’s been true of raising teenagers since time began, which is an issue of trust and separation, where you don’t know who they’re communicating with on their — in their text messages and on the Internet and by cell phone, and so, it’s a scary thing as a parent because it’s another thing that you don’t have control over. There are real dangers involved, and you don’t want to be hysterical about it. On the other hand, you want to be realistic and proactive.  So, it’s a tricky thing.  The other thing…The book that I wrote is called 13 Is The New 18 and people say to me, “What does that mean?”  When I was 13-years-old, it was a very gradual transition between childhood and being a teenager.  Adolescence was a long period of time where kids were funny looking, and they still played with toys.  When I was 12-years-old, I had braids, and I played with Barbies, and let me tell you that 12-year-old girls do not play with Barbies anymore.  12-year-old girls look like movie stars now. They have beautiful teeth and beautiful hair and beautiful skin, and there’s no more pimples, and there’s no more dandruff, and there’s none of that stuff. Their braces…they start wearing braces when they’re 9-years-old.  By the time they’re 14, they’re ready for their screen debut, so that transition that maybe in past generations gave parents a little bit of time to get used to this idea of a kid grown up, that transition is gone.  Overnight now 13-years-old, they are the way we were when we were 16/17.  The middle schoolers are behaving now like high schoolers used to, so that’s another issue for this generation I think.

John Sparks
Precisely. I was going to again attribute that to media.  The media’s so pervasive.  For instance, I love baseball.  I watch baseball, but I’m watching the game on television and all of sudden in between innings is an ad on erectile dysfunction.  So, are today’s children deprived of their childhood, and how can a parent combat this or deal with this?  I mean you mentioned about the Barbie dolls and the girls and what girls are doing now at 12 is so different, and I get back to some of the things that they’re exposed to.

Beth Harpaz
Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more, and I hate to sound like an old fogey, but we watch…We’re Yankee fans, and I got an 11-year-old who loves baseball, and it is hard to sit through those commercials with an 11-year-old, let me tell you.  I agree with you, it’s — they are exposed to a lot more sort of sophisticated themes and older themes, and I think it’s especially hard for parents of girls. I have two boys, so I think it’s not quite as hard for us, not that obviously a parent of any teenager being a responsible parent is talking about sexuality and what your values are as a parent and what the rules are from your point of view, whatever those might be.  But, especially the second time around, since I do have an 11-year-old, I am so committed to letting him be a little boy. I think with my older son, I wasn’t quite ready for that transition to go so fast, and I feel so strongly that as parents, we have to save childhood.  We have to somehow find ways to preserve that sense of wonder. It’s really hard because they are bombarded with so many messages that tell them they have to grow up. They have to see R-rated movies. They have to play violent video games. It’s really, really hard, but there are ways.  I’m lucky my little boy loves sports, and I think that sports is a terrific, terrific way to keep kids young because you know why?  Because instead of it being all about me, I’m so fabulous, look at me, they are part of a team and they’re part of something that’s bigger than they are, and I think that’s part of how you help them preserve that sense of childhood wonders so that they don’t get all teenagery and I know everything and it’s all about me.  I think there are other ways to do it, but I think that sports is a good way… If you’re of a mind to belong to a house of worship or any kind of a community organization, I think anything where we can de-emphasize the self and the selfishness and the I, that sort of self-obsession that teenagers have and connect kids to their family, to their neighborhood, to some organization, to something that’s bigger than they are, and that might even be as simple as you go outside on a starry night and try to find Orion’s Belt or the Big Dipper or something like that, just something so that they get out of that obsession, which I think is very much driven by the media and the celebrity culture that we’re in.

Another issue I think for a lot of kids now is this emphasis on brand names. I mean, you don’t get quite as much when you have boys; but even boys, they want those Jordan sneakers, and Jordan sneakers cost a hundred bucks.  When they’re little, you can buy them sneakers at Payless for 10 bucks, and they’re happy. Then all of sudden, they’re 13-years-old, and that’s not going to do. They want $100 sneakers.  So as parents, we have to again communicate our values.  In my case, I said, “Okay, here’s my budget for sneakers. I’m willing to pay $50 a year for sneakers.  If you need more than that, buddy, go get a job.”  You know what, they got jobs.  Teenagers are very resourceful. If you tell them that you’re only willing to pay so much for something, they will find ways. They will mow lawns, walk dogs, save up their allowance, babysit.  So, that’s another thing that we can do as parents is just be clear about what our values are and just draw those lines and say, “If you need to do it another way, then here’s the situation from my point of view.”

John Sparks
Beth, one thing that hit me in the face when I read the book were cultural differences. You grew up in the Northeast. You raise kids in a Brooklyn apartment.  Parents in other parts of the country, they live in houses with yards. They don’t depend on the subways or trains for transportation, and yet raising teens is a challenge despite those differences isn’t it?

Listen to Part 3:

Beth Harpaz
Well, I’m very struck by the results of your poll that this is a commonality among parents regardless of where they live, how much money they make, what their ethnicity is. I mean I just — I think that says something about just the basic nature of the relationship between parents and teenagers that it doesn’t matter whether your kids taken the subway or having their first driver’s license experience driving a car.  As I said before, I think a lot of these issues revolve around separation.  And, so in New York City, our kids don’t drive.  They do take the train and the bus independently as teenagers, but I think that there’s probably something that I have in common putting my son on the subway by himself for the first time with the mom or dad who is giving the keys to the car to their kid for the first time.  I mean obviously it’s a little more dangerous if you’re going to get in a car accident than if you get lost on the subway, but I think emotionally that it’s a similar moment of letting them go. One of the other big differences, which ultimately may not be all that different, is in an apartment, there’s not a lot of private spaces, so we don’t have the rec room, the basement, the place where kids can go and be alone doing their things with their friends.  So, my son as a teenager is not home a lot because there’s no space there for him to hang out with his friends, and unfortunately they — a lot of times, they’ll go hang out in the park, which isn’t great because there’s no adult supervision whatsoever, or they’ll go to somebody’s house where parents aren’t home. I mean I’m not naïve. I know these things go on so. But, again, it’s one of those separation issues where they want their space. They want to be private.  They’ll find it one way or the other.  I guess in the suburbs or in the country, it’s a little bit different because maybe parents are able to provide a space and then maybe another layer of supervision.  Sometimes, I do wish I had that suburban basement, believe me.

John Sparks
When I was a kid in Texas, this would’ve been the 1950s, I would be away from home all day. Now my parents would not know where I was.  I was usually at the park playing baseball without parental supervision.  I even took a city bus to downtown Fort Worth, Texas, when I was five-years-old all by myself.

Beth Harpaz
Wow.

John Sparks
And they knew, or at least I felt they knew, that I was safe.  But it’s a different world today, isn’t it?

Beth Harpaz
Yeah.  Well, it’s interesting, I think that we are starting to see the end of the helicopter parent. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that term or if your listeners are, but that is a term for the parent who is very anxious and always hovering over the child and not letting the child be independent.  I’m not really sure what created that term.  I myself was not so much like that.  There’s actually another great new book out called Free-Range Kids, like if you heard the term free-range chicken for chickens that are allowed to run around the barnyard, Free-Range Kids. The author is Lenore Skenazy, and she sort of espouses that philosophy that our kids would be better off we backed off a little bit and let them make some of their own mistakes and gave them a little more freedom. I’m not sure that the world is any more dangerous now than it ever was.  In fact, crime statistics would suggest, in fact, that it’s safer now than when we were growing up in the ’60s and ’70s.  So, personally, as a parent, I think there’s a lot to be gained from independence, and I’ve tried to create situations where my kids could figure out the world on their own whether it was walking to school by themselves starting in the third grade or taking the train and subway when they’re 12-13, budgeting their own money, being responsible for some of their own expenses. I think that’s how you create independent adults, and I think if we don’t do that, we’re going to have a lot of 25-year-olds who are doing way too much dependence on their parents.

John Sparks
Beth, I want to talk a little bit more about the book, 13 Is The New 18.  Now, you wrote primarily about your experiences with your son, Taz, at the age of 13.

Listen to Part 4:

Beth Harpaz
Uh-huh.

John Sparks
Now I’m just curious what do you think the book would’ve been like if Taz had written a book about you.

Beth Harpaz
Well, that’s a good question. I bet it would’ve been a different book if he’d written when he was 13 than when he was 16.  I’m happy to say that although I had a very rocky period when he was 13, as a 16-year-old, he is a really nice young man, and we have a very good relationship now.  When he was 13, it was very, very difficult.  We were constantly battling. There just were constant tensions.  It was a constant push and pull where he was very combative and very — the psychologist used the word oppositional.  He was very oppositional. If I said red, he said blue.  If I had a rule, he had to break it. He was just constantly getting in trouble at school.  It was just everybody who was an adult didn’t know anything, and everyone who was a kid was — had a lot of wisdom and that was who he was going to listen to, not his parents.  I already see that he’s already sort of a little bit nostalgic.  He has a little brother, who’s 11, so he can act the big brother and say, “Well you know, it’s good that when we were little, mom did this.”  Well, at the time when I said, “No, you can’t have ice cream for dinner or whatever it was, you didn’t like it.  But, now that you’re 16, you think it was a good idea, well okay.” It’s funny because he’s a very resourceful kid. He has a lot of jobs.  He works at an after-school center and as a camp counselor, and he babysits a lot, and he’s very, very good at that, and it’s interesting because he’s tough. He doesn’t let little kids push him around. When he says, “This is the rule,” that is the rule.  It’s interesting because when he was on the receiving end of rules, he didn’t like them very much.  He thought we were very mean.  Of course, the other thing is even in the last five years, technology has changed a lot.  So his little brother, for example, uses a laptop and has a cell phone because I want to be able to hear from him after school, make sure he’s okay, and of course my older son didn’t have those things when he was 11.  So, he’s constantly saying, “It’s not fair.  He’s only 11, and he gets to have a cell phone and be on a laptop, and you didn’t let me do that when I was 11.”  Well, it was all so new when he was 11 that most 11-year-olds weren’t doing it. So, it’s interesting that even from his point of view, there’s been this sort of increase in technology.  But, from his point of view, we were just really mean when he was younger, and we didn’t let him have those things, but they were very expensive when all this technology was new, and nobody really knew a lot about it.  It wasn’t like every kid had a cell phone when he was in fourth grade.  None of them did, but now most of them do, at least in New York City because they are kind of independent after school, so moms and dads want to hear from their kids, make sure they’re okay in the afternoon.  Where are you?  What are you doing, et cetera?

John Sparks
Beth, you also have a partner in parenting that — with Elon.

Listen to Part 5:

Beth Harpaz
That’s right, my husband Elon.

John Sparks
There are many kids today that don’t have the benefit of two parents,, and I’m just curious what the book would’ve been like if Elon had written it.

Beth Harpaz
Well, I guess a couple things. One is there are more single parents than ever. The statistics show us that.  Obviously a single parent can do an incredibly brilliant job of raising kids.  Just look at our President.  I mean just because you are raising a kid on your own, it doesn’t mean that your kid is going to be handicapped in some way.  I think it’s important to try to find other people both to help you and to give a kid various kinds of role models.  I mean don’t forget, President Obama had a grandpa and a grandma, and other people in his life who cared about him.  So, try to make sure if you’re a single parent that your child is involved in activities, sports, where there’s maybe a coach or maybe drama, a play at school or something like that where they can have a relationship with other adults, take a little bit of pressure off you, but also give them some alternate role models. I think that’s really important. But my husband is a wonderful guy. He’s absolutely brilliant.  He went to Yale.  He was number two in his law school class. He has a mind like a steel trap.  He could beat anybody at Scrabble. He’s really good at things like that and so he’s just…And, he was a really nerdy kid, never kissed a girl, never smoked a joint, never went to a concert. He was really straight as an arrow Boy Scout kind of a kid.  In fact, he was in the Boy Scouts.  We have the medals to prove it.  So, for him to have a kid who’s a teenager who’s a more typical teenager who breaks rules and sometimes gets in trouble and pushes all the buttons, he was completely freaked out by this kid, and I felt that I was often running interference between Elon’s ideal of a brilliant child who’s going to get straight A’s and be perfect and this and that and the other and Taz who was just kind of the teenager who drives you insane.  So…Also, my husband’s father was an immigrant actually, so I think also in immigrant families, there’s a lot of pressure on kids to really be perfect, to be the perfect American child, and this is why we came to this country.  I think there’s…And, I think often kids rise to that challenge. It’s a pressure for them, but often you find in immigrant families that children do try to be more helpful, and that there is that sense that they’re not entitled to something, this is a privilege to be here and you better do it right.  So, that’s definitely been a challenge in our child rearing, but it’s also in some ways, it makes it easier because I can always say to the kids, “Please don’t let daddy down.  You cannot get a ‘C’ in that class, because daddy will just be devastated.”

John Sparks
I’m curious, did Taz ever try to triangulate and play you off of Elon?

Beth Harpaz
There are some kids who will do that, not so much.  I think as parents, we can probably put an end to that.  I think with us, with my husband and I, we often will decide what is important to us and then let the other person make the decision if it doesn’t matter to — if it doesn’t matter.  If something just doesn’t matter to me but I think it’s going to matter to Elon, then I’ll just often defer to him, and I’ll just say, “You know what.  I just really don’t have an opinion on that. It’s up to daddy to make the decision.”  I’m not being a coward about it, but I know that he might care more about something like, oh I don’t know, something having to do with school perhaps or… we’re in the college application process now, so there’s a lot of coordination in that regard.  My husband also is very into sports, so my younger son’s a jock, and sometimes we have sports conflicts.  Okay, he’s got a big test tomorrow, and he’s got a basketball tournament tonight.  What are we going to do here?  I sometimes let him make the call on that because in a marriage, you have to figure out what’s the way that will cause the least conflict among all the parties, that’s the way I see it.

John Sparks
In your book, you talk about how kids at the age of 13, Taz is embarrassed to be seen with his parents.

Listen to Part 6:

Beth Harpaz
Oh yeah.

John Sparks
Has Taz ever read your book?

Beth Harpaz
Taz has not read my book.  Interesting question.  I asked him… I’ve asked him about this a couple times. I checked with him all along in the process. When I had the idea for the book, I got his permission.  At various moments, I gave him an opportunity to read the proposal, the manuscript, the finished product before I sent it in, and he said that he trusted me not to embarrass him too much, which is a good thing.  I also used… The first thing I did when I got my check for the book was I went out and bought him and his brother  a Wii, so that made me a cool mom.  Yes, bribery, it works.  You can buy a child’s love.  I’m not saying it’s the right the thing to do.  I’m just saying it works.  I also…I gave him Taz as a nickname. It’s not his real name, so I created just one little bit of a layer of privacy for him.  I figure, hey, if a college counselor happens to have that book on his desk, and Taz’s application is there in the pile, they might not necessarily make that connection right away because the name Taz is not going to be in the application material.  So, he’s certainly been supportive. I had a big reading in our neighborhood at the local bookstore, and he came with a couple of friends, which I thought was really nice.  So, he’s cool with it, and that’s what matters.  Obviously, it’s not good to embarrass your child in public, so you want to… If you’re going to,do something like this, we’ve got a lot of mommy bloggers out there, and if you’re going to do something like this, you want to make sure your kids aren’t going to hold it against you.

John Sparks
So, Taz is a nickname that you call him by or is this one that you came up with for the book?

Beth Harpaz
I came up with it for the book.

John Sparks
Okay.

Beth Harpaz
But, it does have a little bit of resonance. The Tasmanian Devil is a very popular Looney Tunes’ character, and for kids nowadays, I guess maybe 10-years-ago, Taz was really a big sort of icon. Everybody had a Taz hat or a Taz shirt or a Taz sticker or something like that; and the character Taz, the cartoon character himself, he’s kind of like a teenager.  He’s kind of this like sloppy lazy crazy kind of a guy, so it was a good fitting name.  I also… I could sort of see that as a graffiti tag– Taz.  I could see those letters spray painted on some building somewhere in my mind’s eyes. It seemed like kind of a cool combination of letters.

John Sparks
Now, why did you write the book? Was it to entertain?  Was it to give parents’ tips on parenting based on your successes, your perceived failures?

Listen to Part 7:

Beth Harpaz
The main reason I wrote the book I think was because I was just so shocked at how secretive everybody was once my friends and the people that I had been raising my son with, our community of parents, once their kids got to be adolescents… Like I said before, when they’re little and they have colic or you’re toilet training them or we’ve got kindergarten anxiety or something like that, everybody’s happy to talk about it, honestly, and offer tips and support and oh, I went through the same thing, and here’s what worked for me, or that sort of thing.  Nobody was embarrassed. But, all of sudden when they get to middle school, nobody wants to admit that their kid isn’t perfect. Nobody wants to have a conversation about well I’m worried. I think they might be smoking cigarettes after school.  What do you think?  Oh, my kid would never do that.  That’s not really helpful, and I actually don’t really believe it’s true. I mean we know from surveys that the federal government does, the CDC does a biannual survey of teenage behavior that most teens do experiment with cigarettes. They experiment with alcohol. They experiment with marijuana.  I mean, I’m not the only one who’s walked this path, but parents are afraid to talk about these things.  And I thought well, if I wrote a book about it, and I was honest, and I tried to be as honest as I could, maybe somewhere some mother who’s up in the middle of the night tearing her hair out will read this book and say, “Okay, I’m not the only one.  I’m not going crazy. It’s not my fault. This is part of the normal sequence of events in raising a teenager,” and that was honestly what I hoped to do.  I’ve gotten… believe me, I’ve gotten lots and lots of e-mails and letters from people saying things like:  have you been spying on my house because I’m going exact — I’m going through exactly what you went through with Taz, and it’s so good to know that I’m not the only one, and that they go through this and then they come out on the other end.  Hopefully, fingers crossed, they come out and they’re human beings again.

John Sparks
Beth, you’re quite versatile with the subjects that you tackle.  You’ve been a political writer. You wrote about covering Hillary during the Senate campaign.  I believe you also wrote another book about your mother’s three sisters, the book on raising Taz, you’re a travel editor, you write a parenting column, anything else on the horizon that’s in the works?

Beth Harpaz
I think my next book is going to be called 25 Is The New 11. I’m just having some problems with people who should be grown up and they just are acting like they — like they’re not.  So just hold your breath on that one. If you’ve got any thoughts, let me know.

John Sparks
I used to think that each stage has its trials and it has its treasures and that when I look back, I like to remember the treasures and hope I’ve grown from the trials.

Beth Harpaz
Very good advice.

John Sparks
At any rate, anything else you’d like to add?  You told me of course that Taz is 16, you’re in a new stage there…that Sport, and I assume that’s another nickname, is, I believe, 11.

Beth Harpaz
Yep, that’s my little jock.

John Sparks
So…

Beth Harpaz
Yeah, I think ultimately my message is: Hang on, moms and dads. If you’re raising teenagers, hang on. Like I said before, figure out what your values are, communicate those values, draw your line, try not to get drawn into the screaming battles and hopefully you’ll come out on the other end.  When they’re 15-16-17, hopefully you’ll come out with a kid who’s a human being who loves and respects you and whom you can be proud of.

John Sparks
Well, I know you’re proud of your kids and you should be proud of your book.

Beth Harpaz
Thank you.

John Sparks
I think you’ve done a service and in a humorous way, and good luck to you in all your future endeavors.

Beth Harpaz
Thank you so much. It was great talking to you.

** The views and opinions expressed in this and other interviews found on this site are expressly those of the speakers or authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Marist Poll.

Related Stories:

6/25: Kids Today More Difficult to Raise…Teens Most Troublesome

6/18: One-Fifth of Americans Currently Lack Health Insurance

Although 79% of Americans report that they have health insurance, a notable proportion — 21% — have at least one member in their household currently without a health plan.

The fact that money matters is an understatement.  While 97% of Americans making $100,000 a year annually and 87% of those bringing in between $50,000 and $99,999 a year say they have a health plan, just 67% of residents with an annual salary of less than $50,000 are covered.  And, while our country has made great strides in breaking the color barrier, that does not translate into adequate health coverage for minorities.  84% of white residents say they have health insurance while 69% of African Americans and 63% of Latinos report the same.

Younger Americans are far less likely to have health insurance compared with their elders.  Only 53% of those 18 to 29 say they are fully covered.  However, take a look at the proportion of insured as you move up the age spectrum.  81% of those 30 to 44 years old and the same proportion of those 45 to 59 have health insurance.  Nearly all those approaching or at Medicare eligibility — 92% of those 60 and older — have a health plan.

Need to Fill the Gap

Although 79% of Americans report they currently have health insurance that’s not the end of the story.  8% of Americans with health insurance report a time during the last 12 months when someone in their household did not have a health plan.  When that is added to the 21% of residents currently without  health coverage  the proportion of Americans with continuous coverage over the past year slides to 71%.

The bad news doesn’t stop there.  Another 10% of Americans have had to reduce their health plan in the past year in order to lower costs.  All told, only 61% of Americans had continuous coverage over the past year without reducing their benefits due to cost.

Once again, income makes a difference.  Just half of households earning less than $50,000 annually had continuous coverage without a reduction of benefits during the past year.  This compares with 78% of households making $100,000 or more.  African Americans, as a group, are hard hit.  Only 43% of African American households report that everyone in their household had continuous coverage during the past year without seeing a loss of benefits.

Most young adults under thirty do not have steady health care coverage.  Only 35% of adults between 18 and 29 years old had continuous health insurance coverage in the past year without having to further cut benefits to save money.

Table: Summary of Households with Health Insurance

Marist Poll Methodology

Related Stories:

6/18: Health Care in the United States: An In-Depth Look

6/18: Health Care in the United States: An In-Depth Look

Dr. Irwin Redlener, Co-Founder and President of the Children’s Health Fund, discusses the Marist Poll’s findings on health insurance in the United States and shares his thoughts on President Barack Obama’s health care plan and the future of health care in the country.  Dr. Redlener, also the Director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, addresses, as well, how ready we are to handle the H1N1 virus, other pandemics, and acts of terrorism.  The transcript of his interview with The Marist Poll’s John Sparks is below.

John Sparks
Dr. Redlener, The Marist Poll conducted a survey, and we learned that 21% of households in America have at least someone who is not covered by health insurance.  Now that percentage increases when those households surveyed earned less than $50,000 a year or they’re not college educated or they’re young families or if they fit into a category of ethnic minorities. For instance, 37% of Latino households had someone who’s not covered by health insurance, 31% if it’s an African American household. Do these numbers surprise you?

Listen to the Interview, Part 1:

Dr. Irwin Redlener
The numbers really reinforce what we’ve been increasingly concerned about over the last almost two and a half decades now. The fact of the matter is that an extraordinary number of Americans are not getting access to healthcare in part because of the fact that so many do not have health insurance, and the costs are now absolutely prohibitive.  So, these numbers are striking, and in a certain sense, they’re what we might expect in these very difficult economic times where access to health insurance has always been problematic anyway.

John Sparks
Now, you worked with Hillary Clinton on that National Healthcare Program that never came to fruition.
A lot of folks, including some in the Obama administration, are working on a new national healthcare program. Will we see something put in place this time, and what do you suppose it will be like?

Listen to Part 2:

Dr. Irwin Redlener
I am very optimistic that with President Obama’s leadership that we will in fact see a successful effort this time to really re-create our healthcare system, to reform those parts that need fixing, and to reinforce those parts that we’re very good at.  At the end of the day, I think we’ll see very much of an American style reform in place that won’t be perfect from anyone’s point of view but will bring with it many, many improvements that will benefit American families and really help the economy in terms of slowing down the runaway costs associated with healthcare.

John Sparks
You mentioned a program called Doctors for America, which has been active lately in calling for national healthcare.  Can you tell me what efforts they’ve undertaken for this effort?

Dr. Irwin Redlener
There are a number of physician organizations who are really focused on trying to make sure that the American people understand what is involved with trying to fix the nation’s healthcare system, and this is something we did not see back in the early ’90s when the Clintons were attempting to reform healthcare more than 15 years ago.  What we saw then was general resistance by medical groups in terms of trying to fix the system, but what we’re seeing now is that tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of physicians around the country are joining the call to reform the healthcare system because doctors know as well as anyone else, maybe even more acutely, that what we have now is simply not working.  The role of these organizations, Doctors for America, and some of the other organizations like the National Physicians Alliance are out in public now speaking with the media and speaking directly to the public to try to allay some of the anxiety that people have about health reform.  People are perhaps worried that they’re going to lose their ability to choose a physician if we had health reform, or that we’d have a government run system. These are part of the myths that are associated with people that are resisting or are opposing healthcare reform, and these myths have to be dispelled. People have to understand that we’re looking to develop systems that will keep everyone’s ability to choose their physician and their hospital and at the same time do something about the runaway costs.

John Sparks
And speaking of runaway costs, any idea what a program of national healthcare will end up costing, and how we’ll pay for it?

Dr. Irwin Redlener
Right now the healthcare system in the United States costs about $2.3 trillion a year.  It’s around 14.5% of a gross domestic product.  If we don’t do something to curtail these costs, we’re going to see healthcare, if it goes along its current trajectories, reach a level of maybe 20% of the nation’s gross domestic product which would be utterly unsustainable in terms of the economic forces that would ensue.  The investment in the system right now to fix it so that the costs slow down and that we’re able to ring savings out of the, all elements of the system, will still entail putting somebody into the actual measures that will be part of the reform bill so that we have to invest in state-of-the-art electronic health record systems.  We have to invest in developing programs to prevent disease, not just treat it and so forth.  Those costs could be anywhere from 500 billion to a trillion dollars over a ten-year period, and the President and his economic team, congressional leaders, are coming up with ways to identify those costs which we’re going to have to then debate in Congress and in the public and see what will work.

John Sparks
Are you optimistic that this time we’ll end up with something?

Dr. Irwin Redlener
I am actually optimistic that we will end up with some very significant changes in the system that will significantly expand access to healthcare for people and will reduce costs.  In fact, I believe we will get a package that the president will sign within this calendar year, so I would say I’m in the very optimistic category when it comes to prognosticating about where we’re going.

John Sparks
I’d like to change subjects on you for just a moment.  You’re also involved with the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, and I want to ask you about Swine Flu. Can we realistically produce enough vaccine to combat H1N1?

Listen to Part 3:

Dr. Irwin Redlener
There’s been a great deal of talk obviously and concern about this what’s now being called the novel or new H1N1 virus or what people were originally calling the Swine Flu Virus that originated in Mexico a couple of months ago and is now been spreading rapidly around the world to a point where it spread so much that it’s called an actual pandemic by the World Health Organization, and there’s a lot of things that are being done and could be done to slow the spread, but right now it’s a very mild illness in terms of the potential fatalities that come from it.  That said, we obviously will be needing a vaccine, and the vaccine is being developed as we speak.  What our concern is on a large scale is that if we had to vaccinate many people in a hurry, if let’s say the virus comes back in a more severe form in the Fall and Winter of this year, we’ll really wanting to be vaccinating people. But at the maximum capacity, we could not even produce a billion doses of vaccine, which seems like a huge number, but there’s 6.8 billion people in the world.  So, if we all get is 900 million doses, there’s going to be a substantial gap between those that will be able to get the vaccine and those that won’t, and that’s a big concern.  Secondly, if we put all of our vaccine manufacturing plants on the task of producing a maximum of H1N1 vaccine, that will have the potential of impairing our ability to produce the usual annual influenza vaccine that we still need every year, and don’t forget that seasonal influenza which comes around every year kills about 36,000 Americans every year as well as 250,000 people worldwide.  So, we might be caught between this public health rock and hard place where we need to both work on the seasonal flu but the new pandemic as well.

John Sparks
You mentioned that there’s no way we will be able to produce enough doses.  How will we determine who will get the vaccine, and how many at risk, who will not get the vaccine? Is it the “haves” versus the
“have-not’s?”

Dr. Irwin Redlener
Well one of the most difficult ethical questions we’re going to have is how to distribute a limited amount of vaccine to a very large population around the world who needs it, and I don’t think we have the answers yet, frankly, to that question.   What we… Our guess…  What we are most concerned about is that the nations with limited economic resources, the developing nations, for example, will have far less opportunity to buy or produce the vaccine so that we’ll have a situation where the so called “haves” of the world, the developed nations, may have more than their fair share of the vaccine, and the “have-not” or the poor countries be really suffering because they simply can’t get their hands on enough material to vaccinate all of their citizens. That will have significant political and economic repercussions however.

John Sparks
You know when I think about disaster preparedness, certainly the H1N1 falls under that category.  But I was in New York City for 9/11 and in that,of course, we came to the realization of the potential for other acts of terrorism that could certainly tax our American hospitals.  Just how well equipped are our hospitals today to respond to a pandemic or an act of terrorism?

Dr. Irwin Redlener
This is a fascinating question that we have been wrestling.  My center is the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at what’s called the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, so we actually have been focusing a lot of our energy on trying to analyze the state of readiness of the nation’s hospitals to respond to a pandemic or nuclear terrorism or even another Katrina-like Hurricane.  And, what we and others have consistently found is that while we’re making advances on the public health side, in other words, the ability to track things like pandemics and to follow disease patterns to produce vaccine, we’re getting better at that.  But, what’s now improved very much is the capacity of the nation’s hospitals and healthcare systems to respond or to surge up, to increase capacity if a major event happened.  That problem has been something that we’ve been working on hard, but if we don’t fix it, we may come to regret the fact that we haven’t invested enough in improving hospital readiness prior to the next big event, which inevitably will happen.

John Sparks
Is it a matter of needing more hospitals and more people entering the healthcare profession, or is it simply a matter of trying to ramp up those facilities that we do have?

Dr. Irwin Redlener
The health professional workforce issue is a big challenge, and we do have to ramp that up, and we have to get more people into primary care and that sort of thing. Right now, we have lots of doctors, but poorly distributed, because some communities have lots of doctors, others have none, so there’s some other areas in the background.  But, what we need is the capacity that if something big were to happen in Chicago or LA or the whole country next month, that the system can’t expand enough to take care for the numbers of victims and people needing medical care that we might imagine.  Now, there’s not that many scenarios where large numbers of people would get sick or injured in a short period of time, but you could think of a big earthquake on the West Coast, another Katrina-type situation in the Southeast, nuclear terrorism, and I mean actually a nuclear bomb, not just a dirty weapon in New York or Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles, and when you start thinking about these large, what I call mega events is or mega disasters, we remain concerned that the system doesn’t have enough depth to really be able to respond in a large scale way when we need it.

John Sparks
You know if all this isn’t enough to be concerned about, there is a recession and its effect on healthcare in this country, you referenced it earlier.  We read about losses in the stock market.  We read about huge corporations like General Motors who are not good health, but what is the cost of human health as a
fallout from the recession?

Listen to Part 4:

Dr. Irwin Redlener
This has been very interesting for us to observe — the reporting of the recession as it became more and more severe starting with late 2007 and of course, continuing on through this moment.  Most of the descriptions about the economic downturn were written in financial terms, so we’re talking about a banking crisis, subprime mortgages, uncontrolled derivative markets, and so forth.  What we heard very little about though, was the human cost and the human toll and in particular with children.  So, the Children’s Health Fund a couple of months ago came up with a new initiative called Kids Can’t Wait, and the point of Kids Can’t Wait is to really underscore how badly affected low income families and children are and have been because of this economic downturn. We think on the one hand, this is bad for the banks, it’s bad for our pensions and so forth, but it’s desperately dangerous for people at the lower end where there’s not a lot of disposable income and what income there is needed to go to the doctor or buy groceries or pay the rent or whatever and those people and therefore those children, are being greatly affected, and we really need to put them back on center stage so we can make sure that they aren’t hurt anymore than they already are.

John Sparks
Any idea of a number how many children have lost healthcare?

Dr. Irwin Redlener
Since 2007, we think about a million children have lost healthcare, which parallels the loss that they’re — that families are taking and parallels the loss that is incurred by unemployment, loss of a job.  So, as we track that over this period of time, I believe there’s at least a million kids who are, as a result of these larger economic forces and as a result of the breadwinners of the family losing their jobs or having their jobs greatly reduced, that we’re seeing a very serious downside for children as well.

John Sparks
In talking about some of these challenges with our healthcare, there are moral issues.  We’ve talked about cost control issues, and yet, we need a robust healthcare system. Do you think we’ll be able to meet all those challenges, and what are the implications if we’re not able to?

Dr. Irwin Redlener
Well, we’re facing, as you allude to, a vast array of seemingly overwhelming problems from dealing with the recession, the healthcare crisis to the environment, energy, and a very long agenda on our international challenges as well.  The point about all this is that we can’t do, even though as much as we might want to, we just simply cannot take things on sequentially, because the world doesn’t work like that, and we have to be in a sense as a nation multitasking because all of this is important to the nation’s future, in some cases the world’s future and the world’s future well being.  So, taking care  of our children’s needs, worrying about global warming and figure on how to become energy independent are all part of a complex set of agendas that have to be taken on almost — unfortunately, almost at the same time.

John Sparks
It’s not an easy world we live in.  Dr. Redlener, I want to thank you for your time.  But before you go is there anything that you’d like to comment on?

Dr. Irwin Redlener
I think it’s difficult for people in a day and age like this to understand how serious the problems are we’re facing and in many ways without overusing this term, a lot of these challenges are pretty — are unprecedented in a real way, the amount of debt that the country is building up, the degree to which the healthcare expenses and costs are getting more and more out-of-control, the intensity of our international challenges, it all is big time.  But all that said, the reason I bring this up is to make a point that I think there’s also reason to be optimistic.  I think we can get control in the healthcare system. I think we could do a better job than we’re doing on virtually all the areas that we’re talking about, and I think we’re fortunate that we have an administration that is smart, is well led, it’s organized, and while it’s tackling a lot, I personally am optimistic that we’re going to find some way out of this briar patch sometime in the next few years.

** The views and opinions expressed in this and other interviews found on this site are expressly those of the speakers or authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Marist Poll.

Related Stories:

6/18: One-Fifth of Americans Currently Without Health Insurance…Many More Struggle to Maintain Coverage

6/12: 6% of Americans Have Twitter Accounts

The buzz over Twitter may have reached a fever pitch, but the social networking service hasn’t yet conquered the American populace.  According to a new Marist Poll, only 6% of U.S. residents have personal Twitter accounts.

However, age, education and income do influence one’s tendency to “tweet.” Thirty and early forty-somethings are slightly more likely than any other age group to use Twitter.  10% of Americans between the ages of 30 and 44 belong to the service.  This compares with 7% of 45 to 59 year olds, 6% of 18 to 29 year olds, and just 3% of those 60 and older.  Turning to education 12% of college graduates have joined the ranks of Twitter users while 3% of those without college degrees have done the same.  And, on the income front, 10% of Americans earning $50,000 or more annually say they have a personal Twitter account while just 3% of those making less report the same.

Table: Have Twitter Account?

Marist Poll Methodology

Related Stories:

Twitter: Can’t Beat the Tweet

6/12: Keeping In Touch Online

Next Page »