Abstract
A variety of health-related issues are of intense concern to American voters, but presidential elections rarely provide a clear-cut policy mandate by which health policies are fashioned. Suppose, though, that the recent contest between George Bush and Michael Dukakis had been a referendum on health issues. How closely would their views reflect those of the American people? More extensively than ever before—a reflection of the number of health-related issues that concern Americans—television networks and polling organizations that examine voter attitudes through pre-and postelection opinion surveys asked key questions about universal health cover age, abortion, drug abuse, and spending for health. In this paper, Robert Blendon and Karen Donelan of the Harvard School of Public Health analyze the attitudes expressed by voters and report their findings. One result is that Americans favored Dukakis's universal health plan by a two-to-one margin over the more limited proposals advanced by Bush. Another is that abortion and illegal drugs, but not the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic, were important concerns to voters. Blendon, who has become the nation's foremost public opinion survey analyst in relation to health issues, is chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, a post he assumed two years ago after a distinguished career at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Blendon holds a doctorate in science from The Johns Hopkins University. Donelan is a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health and last year coauthored with Blendon ( The New England Journal of Medicine , 13 October 1988) another major examination of public attitudes that dealt with AIDS. Under Blendon's chairmanship, Harvard is launching the first U.S. program on public opinion and health care. The program will focus on the roles public and leadership opinion play in the formation of the nation's health policy.