On October 13, the day the Senate Finance Committee passed its version of health reform, the Health Affairs Blog held a roundtable on public opinion and health reform. Participants included Bob Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard; Chad Bohnert, director of marketing and e-commerce at Zogby International; Mollyann Brodie, vice president, public [...]

Editor’s Note: What follows is the transcript of a roundtable on public opinion and health reform that took place on October 13,  the day the Senate Finance Committee approved its version of health reform legislation. Participants included Bob Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard; Chad Bohnert, director of marketing and e-commerce at [...]

Posts on public opinion about health reform and how to achieve high-quality, low-cost health care topped the Health Affairs Blog most-read list for October. Additional comment on these and all posts is always welcome.

Can Slumping Support For Health Care Reform Be Turned Around?
by S. Ward Casscells, Hiliary Critchley, Thomas Amoroso, James Tyll, and John Zogby
Are [...]

Editor’s Note: In addition to S. Ward Casscells, M.D. and Hiliary Critchley (photos and bios above), coauthors of this post include Thomas Amoroso, M.D., of the Quincy Medical Center; James Tyll of James Tyll Consulting, LLC; and John Zogby of Zogby International, Inc. The authors are also grateful for analytical advice contributed by Grace Ren [...]

On September 30, 2009, the Harvard School of Public Health, NPR, and the Kaiser Family Foundation released the findings of some new polling on how the public perceives the current debate about health care or health insurance reform.  NPR discussed how most of the public feels that they are not represented in the debate, although [...]

On September 22, 1993, President Bill Clinton spoke to a joint session of Congress about the imperative of enacting health reform. It was a powerful speech. Clinton emphasized the need to fix a “badly broken” system that cost too much and left too many Americans without insurance. He eloquently cited stories of how ordinary Americans [...]

Few of us could have predicted (or were ready for) the firestorm of opposition that provisions in the stimulus bill related to electronic health information or comparative effectiveness research created a few weeks ago.
Oh, we might have thought that privacy issues related to electronic health records (EHRs) might be of concern. Or the fact that electronic [...]

In President Barack Obama’s first weekly video address to the nation this Saturday, he outlined his proposed stimulus package, including efforts on the health care front: “To lower health care cost, cut medical errors, and improve care, we’ll computerize the nation’s health record in five years, saving billions of dollars in health care costs and [...]

If you’re just reading the headlines, jobs and the economy have displaced access to affordable health insurance as the electorate’s top domestic concern with six months to go until Election Day. But digging a little deeper into the results of a new poll from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, it appears that voters also believe [...]

By proposing to move away from the employer-based health care system to one emphasizing the individual market, Sen. John McCain (AZ), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has set the stage for health care to become part of a major debate about government and the marketplace during this year’s election, Robert Blendon said May 5.
Blendon, a [...]

Editor’s Note: In connection with the publication of its May/June issue, a thematic issue on health reform, Health Affairs organized a May 5 conference call on the role of health reform in the presidential election. The call was moderated by Health Affairs editor-in-chief Susan Dentzer. Participants included Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political [...]

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports findings from a new poll today that 29 percent of Americans cite health care as one of the most important issues of public concern. The war in Iraq was cited most often (44 percent). The poll is the first in a series by KFF. The foundation will continue to track [...]

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told voters in Iowa this week, “We’re going to have universal health care when I’m president — there’s no doubt about that. We’re going to get it done.”
When asked about the failed health reform attempt while her husband was president, Sen. Clinton said: “I think we’re in a better position to [...]

A national survey of about 1500 Americans finds that 60% believe smokers should pay higher insurance premiums, and 30% believe obese individuals should pay more. “When it comes to personal responsibility, consumers increasingly support making people pay more for unhealthy behavior,” write researchers from NORC at the University of Chicago in their Nov. 14 Health [...]

As numerous pre-election polls have made very clear, except in a few selected races, health care is playing a relatively minor role in determining the outcome of the 2006 midterm election. As a result, elected officials will arrive back in Washington with little pressure from voters to change the current direction of the country’s health [...]

Americans say that high costs and the lack of insurance and access to care are the most pressing health care problems for government to address, Robert Blendon and coauthors report in an article published today as a Health Affairs Web Exclusive [2-week free access]. Writing a month before the 2006 congressional election, the researchers also [...]