Most Support U.S. Guarantee of Health Care

Now this is a gratifying piece of news. A majority of Americans support a tax guarantee of health care for everyone, even if it costs $500 more taxes! How is that for social justice!
New York Times

A majority of Americans say the federal government should guarantee health insurance to every American, especially children, and are willing to pay higher taxes to do it, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.


Only 24 percent said they were satisfied with President Bush’s handling of the health insurance issue, despite his recent initiatives, and 62 percent said the Democrats were more likely to improve the health care system.


Americans showed a striking willingness in the poll to make tradeoffs to guarantee health insurance for all, including paying as much as $500 more in taxes a year and forgoing future tax cuts.


But the same divisions that doomed the last effort at creating universal health insurance, under the Clinton administration, are still apparent. Americans remain divided, largely along party lines, over whether the government should require everyone to participate in a national health care plan, and over whether the government would do a better job than the private insurance industry in providing coverage.


Looking ahead to the presidential campaign, 36 percent of Americans polled said they had confidence in the ability of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, to “make the right decisions on health care,” while 49 percent said they were uneasy about her.


But Mrs. Clinton retained the confidence of nearly 6 in 10 Democrats on the issue, despite the politically devastating collapse 13 years ago of the national health initiative she helped develop early in her husband’s presidency.