Obama's Health Plan Aimed at Independents, Not Dems

— -- There's a good reason Barack Obama today joined the fray in offering a detailed health care initiative: It's a potential wedge issue for the Democrats in the 2008 election – provided they don't repeat the Clinton-era error of overreaching.

While concern about health care peaks among Democrats, it also weighs heavily for most independents, the crucial swing voters in presidential politics. In a comprehensive ABC News/Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today poll last fall, 64 percent of Democrats called the number of uninsured Americans "a critical problem" for the country – as did 59 percent of independents. Just 32 percent of Republicans agreed.

Similarly, sizable majorities of independents and Democrats alike preferred a government-run, taxpayer-financed universal health insurance program over the current system – 64 and 72 percent, respectively. Again, just 31 percent of Republicans agreed. Eight in 10 Democrats and two-thirds of independents also called covering all Americans more important than holding down taxes; on this, Republicans divided evenly.

Worry about the future is one basis for these differences: Two-thirds of Democrats and independents worry about meeting their future health care costs, while fewer Republicans, 48 percent, share this concern. And majorities of Democrats and independents (65 and 57 percent, respectively) worry about losing insurance because of the loss of a job; that also declines among Republicans, to 44 percent.

Majorities across the political spectrum support a range of proposals, but with sizable differences in degree. Requiring businesses to provide insurance for their full-time employees is backed by 93 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of independents and 67 percent of Republicans. Support for expanding state programs providing health coverage for low-income people ranges from 91 percent of Democrats and 84 percent of independents to 65 percent of Republicans.

Still, there's plenty of room for Republican pushback on the issue, as Clinton learned so well 14 years ago. Support for a universal health insurance system declines sharply if it means limiting the choice of doctors, covering fewer treatments, creating waiting lists for nonemergency treatments or raising costs.