WASHINGTON — Democratic voters are far more dissatisfied with the nation’s health care system than their Republican counterparts and much more likely to support a substantial increase in government spending to expand health coverage, a report says.
A survey of nearly 1,200 voters in 35 states plus the District of Columbia found health care was the second-most important issue affecting how Democrats would vote in their presidential primary or caucus — after only the Iraq war.
Meanwhile, health care tied terrorism for fourth among Republicans’ priorities — following the war, the economy and immigration.
Political and health analysts writing in the New England Journal of Medicine said two- thirds of Democrats want to see their presidential candidate propose a major effort to provide health insurance for all or nearly all of the uninsured, even if it would require a substantial spending increase. Only about a quarter of Republicans felt that way.
Those views are clearly reflected in candidate platforms, with the top Democrats proposing to do away with tax cuts for wealthier Americans. The revenue generated would subsidize coverage for low-income people. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina would mandate that all Americans get health coverage, while Sen. Barack Obama has a mandate for children.
The GOP candidates have focused on giving people tax credits or tax deductions that they could use to help them buy health insurance.
The report’s authors said the candidates’ proposals and the ranking of health care as a top priority point to a larger debate after the elections.
“The prospects for actual health care reform are tempered by two factors: the wide difference in the two parties’ view of what health care reform should look like and the current level of satisfaction that majorities of both parties have with their own health care situations,” the report’s authors concluded.
The primary survey was conducted in early November on behalf of the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.The margin of error for Democratic voters was plus or minus 4 percentage points. The margin of error for Republican voters, as a result of a smaller sampling size, was plus or minus 5 percentage points.
