The Mayo Clinic held a health reform conference this week -- New America's Health Policy director Len Nichols was there and he'll post about it momentarily. But Mayo also released a survey about what the public is thinking about health care. The Health Blog at the Wall Street Journal summed it up, but here are a few interesting snippets:

Just about everyone surveyed - 90 percent --think health care costs too much. No surprise there. Four out of five wanted "freedom of choice" to pick insurers, hospitals and doctors. There was also broad support, more than 70 percent, against denying coverage for people with pre-existing health conditions.

What struck us is who they expected to fix the problems-- slightly more than a third (36 percent) picked insurance companies. Following close behind were doctors and other health care providers (32 percent), Congress (31 percent) and consumers (29 percent). They didn't have much faith in the state government's ability to solve what is after all a national problem (16 percent).

When push comes to shove though, only 17 percent thought that reform is likely in the next decade, and another 17 percent were on the fence. That leaves two out of three skeptical. But we are skeptical about that level of skepticism. Here in Washington, we see people taking different, more open positions than they took during the health fights of the early 1990s. And we see poll after poll showing that voters -- not just Democratic primary voters but Republicans and independents -- want national leaders to address the country's health care crisis. What voters want, voters can get.