The 2008 presidential campaign has seen the Democrats more outspoken on health care than they have been since the early 1990s. The three frontrunners have produced health care proposals that would greatly increase the role of the government in funding and managing the nation's health insurance system, and all constantly speak about health care on the stump.
An aggressive approach would seem to make political sense. Americans are clearly concerned about the cost of health care--often listing it just behind the war in Iraq among their worries--as well as the instability of coverage and the plight of the uninsured. But when pollsters begin to dig into these worries, what they turn up is not quite what the Democrats are hoping.
To begin with, those Americans who are insured--which, of course, includes the vast majority of voters--are very happy with their coverage and care. Almost 90 percent of them rated their coverage good or excellent in last year's Kaiser Foundation poll on health care, the highest rating in the two decades Kaiser has been polling. In the same poll, 93 percent were happy with their quality of care, 86 percent with their ability to get a doctor's appointment when they want to, and 77 percent with their ability to get non-emergency care without having to wait. A surprisingly high 64 percent even said they were satisfied with their health care costs. These are not voters clamoring for radical change in their health care.
Americans are also not eager to see a more
intrusive federal role in health insurance. In early September, Senate Republicans were briefed on the results of recent polling of women and swing voters in key 2008 states which showed that "government-run health care" was a very powerful turn-off for these crucial constituencies. More recent surveys turn up the same result: Voters are anxious about health care, but the prospect of a new bureaucracy to manage their care worries them, too.
What troubles them about the current system is the inherent instability of employment-based health insurance, which links changes in jobs to changes in health coverage. Rising costs, moreover, mean that those just barely holding on to coverage must constantly worry about losing it. Add in the fact that tens of millions of Americans are without insurance, and you have a real desire for action.
But the Democrats' approach to health care, which would essentially dismantle our existing insurance system and replace it with a new one with the government at its center, is a grossly excessive response to these concerns. The candidates' plans would seriously undermine what the vast majority of Americans appreciate about their health care and would introduce new sources of concern. The Democrats made this mistake in 1993, and Republicans were able to crush HillaryCare by just pointing to its profound flaws. In 2007 voters have more serious concerns about health care (and recognize the genuine problems of the uninsured); Republicans will need something to counter with.
Rather surprisingly, though, the Republicans may be prepared. In recent months, without fanfare, a Republican health care consensus has emerged. It is backed by the administration, which introduced a series of proposals in a low-key presidential speech in June. It has the support of Republican leaders in Congress, who have taken to speaking more about health care this summer. And in one form or another it has made it into the stump speech of the leading presidential contenders. The approach consists of three parts: reform of the way health insurance is taxed, more control for consumers in how health care dollars are spent, and more flexibility for states to use Medicaid funds to help the uninsured. Each of these pieces is larger than it seems.
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