Half of Republican Voters Support Some Type of Universal Health Care System, Survey Finds
About half of Republican voters support universal health care and an increasing number consider themselves conservative, according to a survey by Republican consultant Tony Fabrizio, The Hill reports. Fabrizio polled 2,000 self-described Republican voters and compared the results to a similar survey conducted 10 years ago.
Fifty-one percent of Republicans said they believe universal health care should be a right of every U.S. resident, according to the survey. However, Fabrizio said that the "devil is in the details" on health care and that creating a plan the entire 51% could agree upon would be difficult. The survey shows that 71% of respondents consider themselves conservative, a 16% increase over the results of the 1997 survey.
Fabrizio also noted that those surveyed seemed willing to vote for presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) for president despite differences on social and moral issues (Blake, The Hill, 6/28).
The survey is available online. Note: You must have Adobe Acrobat to view the survey.
Opinion Piece
"Leading Republican and Democratic [presidential] candidates and the thinkers behind them appear" to agree that the way to fix the U.S. health care system is "with more taxes, more regulations and more government care," but Giuliani, whose plan would "devolve power back to the people," appears "poised to offer voters a real choice," Sally Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. Giuliani's plan would "shift away" from employer-based insurance and ensure portability of coverage by making money spent on health insurance tax deductible for any type of coverage and allowing U.S. residents to "shop anywhere," without being limited to "plans approved by their state."
His approach is "a strikingly different message than the standard political fare of telling people they have a right to health care and someone else has an obligation to pay for it," Pipes writes. She concludes, "The key is that Americans, for the first time, will have meaningful choices when it comes to health care. And when people have choices, good things happen" (Pipes, Wall Street Journal, 6/28).
