Health care helps Doyle to 7% lead
Governor Jim Doyle leads Congressman Mark Green 47%-41% in a poll done for One Wisconsin Now last week, and OWN says voters' beliefs that Doyle will do a better job on health care issues is working to his benefit. (Update: Among "definite" voters it's 48-41, which is where the headline came from.)
The poll of 708 likely voters was done by Abacus Associates, a reputable national firm.
Respondents were asked whether Doyle or Green would do a better job on six health care issues, and Doyle won most by a whopping margin.
Who or what's responsible for rising health care costs?
Survey says: Drug company profits, first of all, with health insurance company profits in second place.
More detail, including the press release, polling memo and more, are available right from One Wisconsin Now.
Results are consistent with OWN's findings that voters rate health care as their #1 concern. More later.
posted by xoff @ 8:16 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Where does it say Doyle 47% - Green 41%.
Can't find it.
The cost of health care is the elephant in the parlor in all discussions of public (and private) policy in this country.
Government doesn't want to deal with it when so many of the patrons of both political parties are health-care professionals or (worse) insurance company executives.
The private sector doesn't want to deal with it when so many of their allies in the so-called free market are health-care professionals or (worse) insurance companies.
So the status quo continues to contribute to grumbling about high taxes and declining competitiveness in the global economy.
The health-care industry, the drug companies and the insurance companies are all major players in the political process.
In the 2000 campaign, Bristol Myers pressured its executives to give money to George W. Bush.
According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's latest numbers, Mark Green has received 36,400 in PAC money this election cycle from the dentists, $10,000 from Pfizer and $7,500 from Eli Lilly. Wow, the dentists must want to fill the cavity left by the Elections Board's order that Green return unregistered federal PAC money.
Jim Doyle's largest health-care PAC total was $5,000 from the dentists.
These are folks with a vested interest in the status quo. But Doyle and Green could both bolt from the status quo by supporting the bipartisan Wisconsin Health Care Partnership Plan, introduced at the end of the last legislative session, that would provide quality health care to every worker in the state at a significantly reduced cost from the current broken system.
We're talking billions of dollars in savings for the public and private sectors.
I hope both candidates embrace that package.
Rich Eggleston
Health care expert Michael Holt has an excellent piece at the ABC News website this week on exactly what Rich describes above. Holt says the need to maintain the status quo is a result of the "medical-industrial complex," although I don't believe he's the first to use that phrase in that context.
Anyway, here's the article. It's well worth the read.
And, mke tidbits, you can find the Doyle-Green results from the One Wiscosnin Now survey in the group's latest release here.
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