As President Bush issued the fourth veto of his presidency over the bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children’s health, the biggest factor is the rising concern with the economy. In the latest Democracy Corps survey, we examined a full battery of economic worries, but health care tops everything else, rising dramatically in the most recent period. Health care can emerge as the central economic battle of the 2008 election cycle. That is reflected in more and more people choosing health care as the top problem overall making it the top domestic concern. Voters concerns with health care remain primarily in the rising costs as well as in being sure they will always have access to quality care.
As President Bush vetoed the bipartisan S-CHIP bill that would have dramatically expanded children’s health insurance, a memo by Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner shows health care emerging as a top economic concern and voters rejecting the President’s veto by almost a two-to-one margin, preferring the expansion of S-CHIP. The Democracy Corps survey was conducted September 16-19, 2007, among 1,000 likely voters. In their latest strategy memo, Stan Greenberg and James Carville highlight the Democrats’ opportunity in the context of the S-CHIP bill to challenge the President on a defining and important issue, pre-staging a larger debate on health care in 2008.
