With the 2008 Presidential election just over eight months away, and the Democratic nominee still not determined, expect politics to take a front seat in the papers for quite a while.
And when it comes to politics, health care is a dividing issue for the presidential candidates.
Arizona Senator John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, pledged to tackle rising health care costs as president. Senator McCain has proposed a number of ways to reduce costs in our health care system — and hopefully making care more affordable.
The Democratic candidates have taken a different approach. Both candidates New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama rely on the government to take a bigger role in providing affordable health care.
Each goes as far as mandating individual health insurance coverage — Obama requires every child to be insured, while Clinton would require all Americans to obtain coverage.
We know the candidates have different views of health care, but what about the voters?
A new poll found voters who identify with different politic parties have very different views on the quality of the U.S. health care system, reported Reuters.
The poll, conducted by the Harvard University School of Public Health and Harris Interactive, found 68 percent of Republican voters thought the U.S. health system was the best in the world. Only 32 percent of Democratic voters and 40 percent of independents said the same.
“We didn’t think the split would be as large as it was between Republicans and Democrats, “ Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor who helped design the poll questions.
But voters aren’t the only ones that disagree on the quality of the health care system.
The WSJ Health Blog pointed out the World Health Organization ranked the U.S. health system in a disappointing 37th place in the world. But the Cato Institute disputed those results.
There’s a lot of disagreement when it comes to health care, and who we elect as our next president (and new members of Congress) will determine how we go about making any changes.