Health Care is Top Domestic Issue for Democrats, Republicans and Independents

This just in from the Kaiser Family foundation:

Kaiser Tracking Poll Finds Democrats and Independents Continue To Rank Health Care Second Behind Iraq As an Issue For Presidential Candidates To Discuss; Republicans Also Place Health Care Second Now As Issue Appears To Gain Prominence

With the first presidential primaries less than three months away, the October Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 finds health care ranks second behind Iraq as an issue that the public wants the candidates to talk about. The rankings hold not only for Democrats and independents, but also for Republicans.

When asked to name the two issues that they want to hear the presidential candidates talk about, people overall are most likely to name Iraq (44 percent), followed by health care (38 percent), the economy (18 percent) and immigration (12 percent). Among Republicans, 30 percent name health care as one of the top two issues - the highest share recorded for that group since we began the tracking poll in March.

In recent years, polls have found health to be less salient as a political issue for Republicans than for Democrats. While today's poll shows that health still remains a more compelling issue for Democrats and independents, it also shows that it may be rising in salience for Republicans. In our August tracking poll, 21 percent of Republicans picked health as a top issue they want to hear the candidates discuss. In October, that number rose to 30 percent. Future tracking polls will chart whether the issue continues to rise for Republicans.

The polling question was an open-ended one, allowing people to say what was on their minds. When asked a different open-ended question about priorities -"What do you think is the most important problem for the president and Congress to address?"- health care also ranks a solid second overall and for each of the three groups, though it trailed Iraq by a wider margin, 54 percent to 29 percent. The economy came in third at 16 percent.

While Democrats, Republicans and independents rank health care as a top priority, they want to hear the candidates talk about somewhat different things. When asked to pick from a list of issues, Republicans by a two-to-one margin say they'd rather hear about reducing health care costs (44 percent) than expanding coverage for the uninsured (21 percent). Independents are slightly more likely to pick costs (39 percent) over coverage (30 percent), while Democrats are split between the two (41 percent say coverage, 38 percent costs). Fewer people say they want to hear candidates discuss quality of care and medical errors (15 percent overall), or reducing government spending on health programs (7 percent).

The latest tracking poll finds health care is of greater importance to women, perhaps reflecting the fact that women have more interactions with the health care system, both in their own care and in caring for children and elderly family members. Nearly half (45 percent) of women name health care as one of the top two issues they'd like to hear candidates discuss, compared with three in 10 men. This gender split, about a 16-point gap, exists among Republicans and Democrats alike.

The poll also finds that Sen. Hillary Clinton has solidified her lead as the candidate most associated with the health care issue. For the first time in our tracking poll, more than half the public was able to name a candidate who "regardless of political party and whether or not you agree with their views... is placing the biggest emphasis on health care issues." Most who were able to name a candidate - 42 percent overall - name Clinton. Sen. Barack Obama (6 percent) and former Sen. John Edwards (3 percent) rank behind Clinton, while no Republican candidate is mentioned by more than one percent of the public at this point. Clinton's jump on this question came after she unveiled her detailed health care plan in mid-September.

This latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008, the fourth in a series, was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation. A nationally representative random sample of 1,204 adults was interviewed by telephone between October 1 and October 10, 2007. The margin of sampling error for the survey is plus or minus 3 percentage points; for results based on subgroups, the sampling error is higher. Full results are available online here.

The Kaiser Family Foundation also has issued October data for its Health Security Watch, which since 2004 has monitored the public's level of concern about the cost and availability of health care for their families. Those results are now available online here.