Presidential Candidates’ Platforms Reflect Differences in Perspectives of Democratic, Republican Primary Voters on Health Care Issues, Survey Analysis Finds

A newly published article in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that the contrasting health care platforms of the leading Democratic and Republican presidential candidates reflect underlying differences in the views of their primary voters, the AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.

The article is based in part on a new telephone survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, including responses from 674 likely Democratic voters and 508 likely Republican voters in 35 states -- and Washington, D.C. -- with January or February presidential primaries or caucuses (Reuters, 1/24). The survey, conducted in November 2007, had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points for Democratic voters and plus or minus five percentage points for Republican voters (Freking, AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/24).

Survey Results
According to the survey, 65% of Democratic voters say they would like presidential candidates to propose plans that would expand health insurance to all residents, regardless of whether such plans would increase government spending. Among Republican voters, 23% would like to hear about proposals that would expand health insurance to all residents, compared with 42% who prefer more limited proposals and 27% who would like to see no changes to the current system, the survey found.

In addition, Democratic voters are divided between a focus on expanding insurance coverage and controlling costs, while cost issues dominate among Republican voters, the Kaiser/Harvard survey found (Emery, Reuters, 1/24).

According to the article -- based on the new survey and an analysis of 10 other recent surveys -- the health care proposals from the presidential candidates reflect the views of Democratic and Republican voters. The analysis concluded that 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" (AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/24).

Comments
Robert Blendon, a professor of health care and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health and an author of the article, said, "There are huge differences between Republicans and Democrats on what should be done to improve health care" (Reuters, 1/24).

Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman, also an author of the article, said, "In the primaries, we're seeing the presidential candidates adopt health plans that, to some extent, mirror the concerns of their party's core voters -- with leading Democrats aiming for universal coverage by building on the employer-based system and Republicans offering tax-based incentives to encourage more people to buy coverage on their own." He added, "Finding a way to bridge these differences will be important to winning independents in the general election and to fashioning a legislative compromise in the new Congress in 2009" (Kaiser Family Foundation/ Harvard School of Public Health release, 1/23).

Free online access to the article and survey results is available online.