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Health Care And The Presidential Election
WASHINGTON (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A new analysis of the recent American elections and the impact of it has on health care issues showed that they did not play key role in determining the national presidential candidate, but did play an important role in congressional and local elections.
"While health care was an important issue for narrowing the gap between Republicans and Democrats, it didn't swing the election," said Robert Blendon, a Harvard University professor of health policy and political analysis.
Urban Institute President Robert Reischauer attributed the low profile of health care in the election to a general sense of confusion about where presidential candidates stood on such issues as Medicare reform and patient protection legislation.
Patient protection legislation, hotly debated in Congress for the past several months, played a surprisingly minor role at the national level, he said. "Gore could pound on the drum and say, 'This administration is pushing an adequate patients' rights bill,' and Bush [referring to Texas' passage of a patient protection law] could come back and say, 'My state's done what the feds are trying to do.' "
But in other races, including the two chambers of Congress, HMO reforms and health care issues seemed to play a more important role in selecting members of Congress, Blendon noted. "They were extremely important for Democratic voters voting for a Congress member," he said.
In a tough Senate race in Michigan, Democratic Representative Debbie Stabenow won over Republican incumbent Spencer Abraham. Health care was one of her stronger issues, despite millions of dollars spent on advertisements criticizing her stances by her rival.
"When it came down to dollars and who was funding [Abraham], she was fighting on the side of patients and he was fighting on the side of insurance companies," said Kerin Polla, Stabenow's press secretary.
A post-election survey released by the Health Insurance Association of America also found that health care was not the determining issue in the November 7th elections.
But the survey of 800 voters, conducted by Republican and Democratic pollsters, did reveal "many voters consider health care and prescription drug costs to be a problem facing the country today," said HIAA President Chip Kahn.
Surveyed voters reported that health care and prescription drug costs combined to rank fourth among important issues facing the country, behind a decline in moral values, Social Security, aid to the elderly and quality of education.
When asked to choose among five goals that could be followed to change the nation's health care system, surveyed voters chose providing basic health insurance coverage to all Americans, followed by making health care more affordable.
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