New York Times Column Examines Role Of Health Care In Campaign

Health care has become “by many measures” the “leading domestic policy issue” for U.S. voters and “especially hot among Democrats,” Robin Toner writes in a New York Times political column. According to Toner, many Democratic presidential candidates “have been campaigning aggressively on the issue for months.” A Times/CBS News poll conducted in February found that 83% of Democrats said that they consider the issue of the uninsured a “very serious” problem. Democratic presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) in February announced a universal health insurance proposal funded in part with a repeal of tax cuts supported by President Bush. In addition, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has said that he would announce a proposal to provide universal health insurance by 2013. Toner cites a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey as showing that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) “led the pack” among Democrats when asked which candidate best represents their views on health care. According to Toner, Obama faces more “pressure” on health care than Edwards and Clinton because “he has yet to demonstrate that his candidacy is about substantive policy proposals,” and the details of his proposal “could end up defining … Obama in a way that he has yet to be defined.” Jonathan Gruber, a health care adviser, said Obama is “clearly not a single-payer guy, but he’s clearly not a Band-Aid guy.” According to Gruber, “He wants to do something transformative, but at the same time, he isn’t politically tone deaf.” Robert Blendon, an expert on public opinion and health care at Harvard University, said Obama “needs to show key supporters that he’s going to do something big on this, but he also has to make a decision what kind of signal he wants to send to the broader political marketplace” (Toner, New York Times, 4/11).

“Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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