In poll after poll Americans rank healthcare as the most important domestic issue for the next president’s agenda.
And it’s not a surprise. Healthcare costs have risen by 87% since 200. That's four times faster than wages.
But some Republican voters in the state worry that GOP presidential candidates aren’t focusing enough on healthcare issues.
NHPR’s Dianne Finch talks to some of those voters about their views on the candidates’ healthcare reform plans.
Republican and Democratic presidential candidates share some of the same concerns in the healthcare debate.
Costs are skyrocketing.
A concerted focus on disease prevention would help to bring healthcare costs down.
And no one is pleased that 47 million Americans remain uninsured.
But solutions to those problems split along party lines.
Democratic candidates tend to focus on moving the country toward universal healthcare arguing that costs will drop as more people get enrolled.
Republicans generally tend to focus on consumers overusing the healthcare system.
They argue that using free market initiatives and tax code incentives will encourage people to buy their own insurance and save money to pay for routine care.
But Republican candidates’ plans are skeletal compared with those of their Democratic rivals.
And some Republican voters in New Hampshire have noticed that lack of detail.
Wendy Stanley Jones, a registered Republican, works as a nurse in Rochester.
Jones: “I work in facility where we have people who are insured, have Medicaid have Medicare and who are uninsured. I see a whole picture. I’ve not seen a proposal that says we’ll look at the whole picture of healthcare. I would like the opportunity to really discuss domestically what are we doing with healthcare.”
Jones said she feels that Democrats want to throw money at the problem – while the Republicans aren’t giving it enough thought.
Jones: “Could we have a real debate about domestic issues and how they’re different? We’ve not seen that - so frankly it’s very tough to say on healthcare alone I like this candidate.”
All the top-tier candidatesMitt Romney, Rudy Guilliani and John McCain have all released healthcare plans.
And all three call for similar measures:
Establish more tax exempt health savings accounts, provide tax incentives for people who buy insurance privately, reign in malpractice lawsuits, and focus more on prevention.
McCain’s plan also offers temporary help to people who lose their jobs.
McCAIN: “ When someone loses job today they can keep their insurance policy but they can’t afford it so we’ve got give them a lower cost health ins policy while they are transitioning between jobs.”
Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans would not require that people have insurance.
That said, as Governor of Massachusetts, Romney signed a universal healthcare bill that requires that all citizens of that state get insured.
He distances himself from that plan now, however, and when asked, says it wouldn’t work at the federal level.
Romney: “It may not be a perfect plan but I think it’s a good one and I want to see other states experiment with their own ways to get everybody insured.”
While all of the Republicans focus on prevention to reduce illnesses and costs - Mike Huckabee seems particularly passionate about it.
He likes to use a personal story of how he controlled his own healthcare costs.
He lost over 100 pounds after finding out that he had Type II diabetes.
Huckabee: “It’s really not a healthcare system. It’s a disease care system. And its updside down because the focus is so much so on treating disease that we forget it would be a lot less expensive to put a focus on prevention.”
While Republican candidates don’t generally dwell on how they’d repair the healthcare system, they do spend time criticizing Democratic plans.
And they want voters to hear one thing.
Romney: “And they’re gonna say we have to have a socialized kind of medicine government single payer system. Raise taxes.”
Guilliani: “The future is not socialized medicine. Every one of Democrats wants government mandated health insurance - it is going to lead to government controlled health insurance.”
Ron Paul: “Turn back this trend toward socialism and socialized and government control and allow people opt out of the system. Let them get out and give them a tax credit and let them have their you know their medical savings account.”
John McCain: “There’s a siren song out there being voiced by the democratic candidates for president of universal single payer big government healthcare in America and my friends go up to Canada first and see whether that system works before you sign on to it.”
But while most democrats do rely on the federal government for some level of help, only one - Dennis Kucinich - is calling for a single payer system.
He argues that private insurers are causing healthcare costs to spin out of control.
Lee Quandt, a Republican state Representative from Exeter, certainly won’t be voting for Kucinich.
But he agrees that insurance companies -- and large hospitals -- are drawing too much money out of the healthcare system.
And he says GOP Candidates aren’t talking enough about it.
Quandt: “We need to have a nationwide hard hitting study commission to look at health insurance companies and healthcare delivery. The insurance companies are as bad as the hospitals - they’ll stick you in a heart beat. And I’m a Republican. But if we don’t look out for people that need help nobody else will.”
The latest Kaiser Foundation Health Tracking poll shows that 50% of Republican voters feel that the candidates should talk more about reducing costs of healthcare and health insurance.
But Andy Smith Director of the University of New Hampshire’s Survey Center, says healthcare is not typically an issue for GOP candidates.
Andy Smith: “And the other thing is that the candidates just aren’t talk about healthcare anywhere near as much as democratic candidates are so there isn’t that 2-way conversation going on between candidates and voters that you see on Democratic side.”
Still, Smith adds that in New Hampshire, only 6% of Republicans say they would cast a vote on healthcare policy alone.
But healthcare is second to Iraq on the minds of those Republican voters.
For NHPR News, I’m Dianne Finch
