Health Care no longer primary election issue for Presidential candidates
21 08 08 - 20:56
Health care no longer primary ailment
Economy, price of gas, war in Iraq have surpassed insurance as top election issue for candidates
By Jill Zuckman | Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — What happened to health care?
In the daily rat-a-tat-tat between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, the silence is deafening.
It was once the "it" topic of public policy that helped propel the Clintons into office, sparked open warfare among special interests, and then toppled a Democratic Congress.
For a while, health care was that which was not spoken about following the 1994 legislative debacle. For Sen. Hillary Clinton, it was something that taught her great lessons. And in the drawn- out Democratic primary fight between her and Obama, the cost and availability of health care were daily fodder in the debate over which candidate would do a better job as president.
And now, there is ... not much.
The continual tussle between the two presumptive presidential nominees — Obama and McCain — has largely centered recently on national security and the high price of gasoline. Public opinion polls have shown that among the top issues of concern to Americans, health care is languishing far behind the economy, the war and the price of gas. One CBS poll from July put voter interest in health care at just 3 percent. In August, it was at 8 percent.
Trumped by gas
"For a lot of people who have health insurance, they are paying more for health care, but it may not show up as concretely as paying $70 to fill their gas tank," said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster.
This week, the Obama campaign criticized McCain's visit to an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana and held a conference call with Tom Vilsack, the former Democratic governor of Iowa, to complain about McCain's opposition to an energy bill pending on Capitol Hill. It also announced a "Next Generation Veterans for Obama" group that will participate at the Democratic convention, and accused McCain of questioning Obama's patriotism.
The McCain campaign, on the other hand, promoted new numbers from the Gallup Poll showing that veterans solidly back McCain, a Navy veteran, over Obama. It also criticized Obama's support for equal pay for women as a cash cow for trial lawyers. And it accused Obama of lacking credibility on the international stage and engaging in theatrics to make up for his deficiencies.
There were no conference calls to talk about health care. There were no television ads about health care. On the campaign trail, Obama responded to a question Monday from a voter on the subject.
To be sure, both campaigns offer detailed — but very different — health-care plans. While both say they want to provide affordable, high-quality health care for all, they go about it quite differently.
McCain, for example, would eliminate favorable tax treatment for employer-sponsored health insurance and provide individuals with tax credits of $2,500 per person or $5,000 per family to buy insurance. He would promote competition among the insurers by allowing people to choose insurance companies outside their state.
Obama, on the other hand, would require all children to have health insurance and would require employers to offer health benefits to workers or contribute to the cost of a new public plan. He would expand Medicaid, which provides health coverage to the poor and the disabled, and he would expand SCHIP, the children's health insurance program.
On Capitol Hill, Democratic and Republican staffers have already begun meeting in preparation for work on health-care legislation next year, even if they don't know who will be president.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said he's seeing an energetic debate about the cost of health care in House races around the country, though it is not the top topic for the presidential candidates right now.
"College costs, health-care costs and energy costs are up, and income is down," Emanuel said. "Any one of those subjects touches a raw nerve for the middle class in this country. I'm seeing it in race after race."
Emanuel and other Democrats say they expect Obama to highlight health care at the Democratic convention in Denver next week.
'Still a top concern'
Obama's spokesman, Bill Burton, said the problem is the press, not the campaign.
"The issue of health care may be getting less attention than it deserves from the media, but it's still a top concern for voters and among the top issues that Sen. Obama talks about on the campaign trail," said Burton.
Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for McCain, acknowledged that the issue has not been prominent so far.
"However," he said, "There is a stark contrast in the way both candidates would address the issue. Because the views on providing affordability, accessibility and portability of health care are so divergent, it could hardly escape the conversation each candidate will have with voters."
Still, as the cost of gasoline skyrocketed this summer and as voters brace themselves for the high price of home heating oil and natural gas, public opinion has shifted on what matters most.
Signs for health costs
Many political analysts attribute the rejiggered priorities to the in-your-face nature of gas station signs advertising the price of gasoline.
"If people had to pass that many signs that announced how much health care costs, you can bet it would be at the top of the agenda," said Matt Bennett, a founder of Third Way, a Democratic think tank, and former adviser to Vice President Al Gore. "It is strikingly different from 2000, when Gore spent 60 percent of the time at most events talking about health care."
Gary Ferguson, a Republican pollster who specializes in health care, said that even though the issue seems to be lagging, it's still part of people's economic concerns.
Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, called gas prices "the canary in the coal mine" for economic worries.
"Beneath all that, when you probe, when you ask people what's bothering you about the economy right now, in economic downturns — problems paying for health care and health insurance really loom large," Altman said. "After people's fixations paying for gas prices, problems paying for health care are right at the top with job issues."
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