The New American Electorate and Health Reform

An analysis of the electorate and health reform that considers how American voters’ values influenced their support or opposition toward health reform proposals and how those attitudes shifted over the course of the debate. The study uses a novel typologyof the American people developed by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press that divides voters into ten groups of which three are pro-Republican, four are pro-Democrat, and the remainder are Independents. Among the values determined to be most significant in assessing public opinion on health reform were: attitudes toward government, attitudes toward the poor and needy, and attitudes toward business. Economic and political variables were also relevant. Times Mirror found similar values among different groups and differing values within the same group.