Except for Iraq, health care ranks as the top issue of concern for Americans, according to a recent national survey conducted for the Kaiser Family Foundation. Here are some survey questions and responses that might be of interest to Health Freedom Watch readers.

When asked the open-ended (combined) questions: “What do you think is the most important problem for the government to address? Is there another problem you think is almost as important for government to address?” 44 percent of respondents cited Iraq/war in Iraq followed by (percentages will add to more than 100 percent due to multiple responses):

• health care: 29 percent
• economic issues: 13 percent
• immigration/illegal immigration: 9 percent
• education/schools: 8 percent
• terrorism/national security: 8 percent
• frustration with government/corruption: 7 percent
• budget deficit/national debt: 5 percent
• gas prices/energy: 4 percent
• taxes: 4 percent
• Social Security: 4 percent
• environmental issues/pollution/global warming: 3 percent
• crime/violence: 3 percent
• foreign affairs/not Iraq: 3 percent
• morality issues: 3 percent
• seniors/retirement issues (not Medicare): 1 percent
• other: 6 percent
• don’t know/refused: 11 percent

The 29 percent citing health care were concerned about the following subset of topics (the percentages add to 30 percent due to rounding):

• health care in general: 13 percent
• uninsured/access to health care/universal coverage: 7 percent
• health-care costs: 5 percent
• other health-care mentions: 3 percent
• Medicare: 2 percent

Respondents were also asked:

Which ONE of the following three things would you like to see in a health care reform proposal from a presidential candidate? Would you want your candidate to propose…

A new health plan that would make a major effort to provide health insurance for all or nearly all of the uninsured BUT would involve a substantial increase in spending OR

A new health plan that is more limited and would cover only some groups of the uninsured BUT would involve less new spending OR

Keeping things basically as they are? [Emphasis added]