California

"When Representative Tom Price spoke to the Roswell Kiwanians the other day, the first three questions concerned health care. When he appeared four days later before the Sandy Springs Rotarians, no one asked about it at all."

That's the lead on a New York Times story today on how health care is playing with voters. As Kevin Sack wrote, "Health care is an issue that can seem to vacillate in importance by the day, the place, and the audience." But he quotes Price, a conservative Republican physician from Georgia who holds Newt Gingrich's old seat, as saying that it's still one of the top three issues for every demographic group. While focusing on the presidential race, the piece also looks at how health care is playing out in congressional elections too.

We hope both parties keep talking about health care, because health care is one of those things where if there's no talk, it's unlikely that there will be any action. And just in today's news, here are some good reasons to keep talking:

1) Voters are confused. Very confused. They want to slow down health spending, but are having trouble figuring out which candidate would do what with which consquences. As Gary Andres writes in the Washington Times:

Apparently, a lot of Californians shared our disappointment when the state's health reform efforts fell apart earlier this year. A new Field Health Policy Survey shows that Californians are none too confident about the future of health care in their state after lawmakers killed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to cover all Californians in January.

The survey, commissioned by the California Wellness Foundation, found that voters are even more worried now (quite possibly because as the economy worsens, people get more nervous about health costs and job-related insurance). For instance, 59 percent are "very concerned" about not being able to pay all of the costs for a major illness or surgery, up from 48 percent in late 2006. Other findings:

We flew in a bunch of survivors from the California health wars the other day to share their perspective with Washington policymakers gearing up for possible national health reform next year. As we all know, a carefully crafted bipartisan compromise between the Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic Assembly passed that chamber by a healthy 46-31 margin last December only to fizzle a month later in the state Senate Health Committee. The seven to one "no" vote was the legislative equivalent of blunt trauma to the head. Yet we were struck by the optimistic tone of our panelists. They built powerful coalitions against difficult odds around an ambitious hybrid public-private health coverage plan. Their ability to bring stakeholders together was an important lesson as we try to prepare bipartisan, cross-sector ground for national reform next year. And instead of retreating to lick their wounds, they are thinking about how to keep cooperating in the future. One possible target: the much-publicized "rescissions" in which insurers have retroactively cancelled policies after an insured person gets sick and starts costing them money.