Red and blue views on health care. You have to wonder if we’re all using the same doctors and hospitals when 68 percent of Republicans say they think our health-care system is the best in the world, while only 32 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of unaffiliated voters would make that claim. A poll released in March by the Harvard School of Public Health and Harris Interactivefound that nearly three- quarters of Republicans believed that patients in the United States get better quality care and face shorter waiting times to see specialists or be admitted to a hospital than do their counterparts in Canada, France or Great Britain. Less than half of Democrats and independents felt that way. The telephone survey of 1,026 adults found that Democrats and independents were more pessimistic than Republicans on every measure of health-care performance. When it came to the cost of health care, however, all parties agreed: It’s a problem. U.S. News and World Report
