In addition to being a dysfunctional war of labels, the health care non-debate in the United States has in some ways been a dysfunctional war of polls. Liberals champion polls indicating that a huge percentage of voters favor single-payer or at least “public option” (the latter collapses into the former anyway, that’s its whole point, as even the more honest advocates admit) health coverage from the government. What these liberals don’t tell you, of course, is that voters only support these options at that rate when the questions asked do not talk about cost. It is hardly surprising that getting something for nothing is popular prior to its impossibility being revealed.

Conservatives do little better, however. They present polls that show most people are happy with their current health care, thus showing that the system ain’t broke and there is little need to spend trillions to fix it. What these conservatives don’t tell you, however, is that such polls by definition only include people who already have health care and thus it does not include the tens of millions who can only access care by clogging emergency rooms to receive treatments that are extremely expensive and often only useful as temporary stopgap measures. It is hardly surprising that those who already have good coverage and haven’t faced the cold realities of the darker aspects of the current health care system would tend to think that everything is more or less ok.

Quinnipac University, however, finally asked the question that bridged some of the deficiencies in the polls. The result is that a clear majority of voters believe that the danger of excessive government spending (the deficit is already at nearly $2 trillion per year even before layering on health care reform which even almost certainly low-ball estimates from the CBO put at $100 billion per year) is more important than systemic health care reform.

This means that the self-righteous reform advocates who brush off concerns about cost by pointing to polls lose in the contest of polls. It does not, however, mean that reform should simply be ignored. The 47 million uninsured aren’t going away nor is the excessive systemic cost of treating their conditions through emergency rooms. Also, problems like misuse of recission (revoking health coverage once people get sick) and “job lock” (inability to change jobs due to fears of losing health coverage) remain serious drains on the systemic sustainability of the health system. What this poll does mean is that pro-reform purists need to be willing to compromise with serious moderates like North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad to craft reform proposals that avoid the impossible expense of the “single-payer” dream while addressing some of the real flaws in the system.

Of course, they will first have to stop assuming that everyone who disagrees with them is just a bad person. And getting purists to concede even the mere possibility of good-faith compromise may be the most difficult barrier of all.