With healthcare a top domestic issue in the 2008 presidential election, a new study shows that voters are not likely to cross party lines when it comes to reform.
According to the study, presidential hopefuls have aligned their platforms to the views of their voters, and there are "huge differences" between what Republicans and Democrats say should be done to improve healthcare.
Study results were published Jan. 24 in the New England Journal of Medicine in an article titled "Health Care in the 2008 Presidential Primaries." Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Drew E. Altman, PhD, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, were the lead authors.
"Although a plurality of Democrats say that government should have primary responsibility for making sure that Americans have health care, and the majority say they are willing to pay higher taxes for increased coverage, the plurality of Republicans say health care coverage should be an individual responsibility," researchers said.
The Kaiser/Harvard study was based on a November phone survey of more than 674 likely Democratic voters and 508 likely Republican voters in 35 states and the District of Columbia. The voters lived in states with January or February primaries or caucuses. The researchers combined the phone survey with data from 10 other recent surveys by national media polling organizations.
The study found two-thirds of likely Democratic primary voters said they would like presidential candidates to propose plans for universal coverage, even if it involves a substantial increase in government spending.
By contrast, only a quarter of likely Republican primary voters said they would like universal healthcare coverage or anything like it. Forty-two percent of Republican primary voters said they would prefer a more limited, less costly expansion.
"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," Altman said.
Researchers also found that early primary voters differed on the specific healthcare issues they said would be most important to them when choosing a candidate. Democratic voters were divided between expanding insurance coverage and controlling costs. Among Republican voters, cost issues dominated.