Survey finds health care costs a key issue in presidential campaign

Nov 18 2011

But Americans remain split in their support for the health law. Meanwhile, in news from the campaign trail, Paul, Romney, Perry and Bachmann all grab health policy headlines.

Reuters: Healthcare Is Second-Most Important Issue: Survey
Healthcare and the national deficit tied as the second-most important issue after job creation in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, a new survey said. Forty-two percent of the 1,000 adults nationwide surveyed by PwC's Health Research Institute said they would prefer lower healthcare costs over an economic rebound. Nearly half said they made the decision to not seek healthcare or pay for medication at least once in the past year because of how much that care cost (11/16).

Boston Globe: Poll: 47% Of Americans Want To Repeal Health Care Law
A plurality of Americans want to repeal President Obama's health care overhaul law, according to a new Gallup poll released today. The survey found that 47 percent of respondents are in favor of eliminating the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, while 42 percent want it to remain intact. The results were largely divided along partisan lines, with 80 percent of Republicans supporting a repeal and 64 percent of Democrats favoring the reform's preservation. Independents lean toward repeal, 48 percent to 43 percent (Katz, 11/16).

The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: Ron Paul's Rx For Health Care: Excise Government
The government should get out of health care, but not entirely and not yet, GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul told the Congressional Health Caucus Wednesday (Radnofsky, 11/16).

Kaiser Health News: In Capitol Hill Speech, Paul Decries 'Corporate Medicine,' 'Government Intervention'
Ron Paul, GOP representative from Texas, physician and dogged presidential candidate, outlined his vision Wednesday to the Congressional Health Care Caucus, the same group that hosted rival Herman Cain two weeks ago. The CHCC, open only to Republican House members and staff, is likely to be the friendliest audience Paul will find for ideas grounded in the his strong libertarian convictions (Torres, 11/16). Watch the related video: Ron Paul: 'Government Shouldn't Be Involved' In Health Care (11/16).

National Journal: Paul: Keep Medicare And Offer MSAs
Although he campaigns on his disdain for government involvement in the private sector, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul on Wednesday said that he would preserve health care entitlements, including the Medicare program for the elderly and disabled, while trying to transition Americans into medical savings accounts. "Probably the worst thing that we ever did was make medical care the responsibility of the government," Paul said at a meeting of the Republican Congressional Health Care Caucus. "I don't think our federal government should be any more involved in medical care delivery than they should be in delivering education to our children" (Khan, 11/16).

Politico Pro: Romney's Real Health Reform Goals Differed
Mitt Romney has spent a lot of time defending himself over the Massachusetts health care law. But there's another way to judge his health care record: Look at what he wanted to do. And what he wanted to do was a bit different than what happened after he signed the law as governor. Romney wanted a lighter mandate, with a way to get out of it if people were willing to pay something upfront to cover them in catastrophic events. He didn't want to cover as many benefits. And he didn't want to expand Medicaid at all. His vision was never going to fly in the liberal state -; so he signed a much different version into law, often described as a framework for what was to come. But his original plan shows that his own ideas were more market-driven, with fewer required benefits for health plans and no mandate for small businesses to offer health insurance (Nocera, 11/17).

The Hill: Architect Of Romney's Health Care Law Says It's 'The Same' As Obama's
White House hopeful Mitt Romney is "lying" when he says the healthcare law he signed in Massachusetts is substantively different from President Obama's, a key architect of both plans said Wednesday. Jonathan Gruber, a healthcare economist and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, made the comments in an interview with Capital New York, criticizing Romney's attempt to argue that the federal healthcare law goes further than what he signed as Massachusetts governor (Baker, 11/16).

CNN: Dems Say Romney Wrong On Vets' Health Care
Mitt Romney's campaign is pushing back after Democrats released a Web video painting the candidate as insensitive to the health concerns of veterans. The video, from the Democratic National Committee, hits Romney for mentioning health care vouchers as an option for veterans. The former Massachusetts governor made the comments on Veterans Day during a roundtable with vets in South Carolina. … The video released Wednesday by the DNC says the vouchers would amount to "undermining veterans' health care when they need it the most." The DNC poses the question, "But what if a voucher doesn't cover the care for our wounded warriors" (Liptak, 11/16)?

Des Moines Register: Bachmann: Obama Has Politics Over Security
(Rep. Michele) Bachmann also repeated her promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the federal health care law Republicans derisively refer to as "Obamacare." The law -; which will expand the Medicaid health-care program for the poor, establish health care marketplaces in every state and require most Americans to purchase insurance -; represents "socialized medicine" and would raise costs while lowering quality, Bachmann said. To repeal it, she said she would draw on her experiences repealing a statewide education law as a state senator in Minnesota (Noble, 11/17).

Boston Globe: Perry Tells N.H. Voters He Favors State Health Plans Over Obama's
Texas Governor Rick Perry said today that he would leave decisions about health care coverage up to the states, even as his own state trails the country in numbers of uninsured citizens. Perry was put on the defensive by two voters at a town hall meeting, who questioned his opposition to President Obama's health care overhaul and his own plan for covering those with preexisting conditions (Schoenberg, 11/16).