Health care could swing voters
A new analysis of 37 national opinion polls that were conducted by 17 survey organizations finds that health care is the second most important issue for likely voters in deciding their 2012 presidential vote. This is the highest that health care has been ranked as a presidential election issue since 1992. When likely voters were asked to choose from a list of issues, similar to the approach used in election-day exit polls, one in five (20 percent) named “health care and Medicare” as the most important issue in their 2012 voting choice, far behind “the economy and jobs” (cited by 51 percent). “The economy dominates most voters’ thinking in terms of their priorities for choosing a candidate,” said Robert J. Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard School of Public Health and co-author of the analysis that appeared as an online special report on Wednesday in the New England...