Poll: Americans still divided on health reform

Voters are still equally divided on health care reform, but more than half of them agree the issue will be a "major factor" in deciding how they will vote in 2010, a new Gallup poll finds.

About 37 percent of voters surveyed in the poll released Tuesday said they would advise their lawmakers to support a health care reform bill, up just two points since Gallup first conducted the poll in the early August. Thirty-nine percent, meanwhile, indicated they would encourage their Congressmen to vote against any proposal, up just three points over that same time period. About one in four were still unsure -- a very slight decrease over the past four weeks.

If anything, Gallup's latest numbers perhaps suggest this month's frequent -- and occasionally raucous -- town halls have hardly budged voter sentiment in either direction. Two-thirds of surveyed Democrats support reform, the same proportion of Republicans oppose it and neither side has courted a majority of self-designated independents (though the group did tend not to support reform in the poll).

Most voters, however, intend to bring their health care qualms to the ballot box: Both sides of the debate told Gallup their votes in 2010 depended quite considerably on how their members vote in Congress. That feeling is held most strongly by voters who oppose health care reform -- a group Gallup predicts could have a "political edge."