Health care tops voters’ concerns

“If I can’t stop the bleeding, I’m afraid I won’t be able to save her,” one of my mother’s four doctors said three weeks ago as he asked for permission to operate on her frail, 76-year-old, 83-pound body.

Mind you, I went through the intensive care unit danger zone with my now-deceased father at this same time last year.

Leaving the Northern Virginia hospital late one evening during her teetering recovery from a four-hour surgery, I ran into a high school classmate whose mother also was being treated in the intensive care unit. As we strolled to the parking lot, we crossed paths with yet another high school classmate whose older sister had been hospitalized for nearly a week.

You realize that you have reached a crossroads in your life when you find yourself in the midst of an impromptu high school class reunion in a hospital parking lot.

Last weekend, I attended a more formal class reunion for the Class of ‘68 of T.C. Williams High School. You know, home of “Remember the Titans.”

Much of the catch-up chatter revolved around our baby-boomer ailments, or those of our aging parents. One classmate, still a beauty queen, joked that if we wait another 10 years for our next class reunion, “we’ll have to have a Botox party first.”

“Or half of us will be using walkers and carrying oxygen tanks while the other half won’t make it,” I added.

Health care, or the lack of it, was an even bigger topic than the reminiscent whispers about Mike and Patsy dancing some 40 years later.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised Monday to receive a news release from the pollsters at the Marist Poll saying that “health care trumps tax cuts by a wide margin” in their latest findings in the presidential race.

“When faced with a choice, voters nationally would prefer the next president address health care rather than tax cuts. Seventy percent view health care as their priority, compared with 27 percent who say cutting taxes would be their choice,” the news release said.

“Although there may be differences along party lines, a majority of Democrats and Republicans agree,” the poll shows. That’s 81 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Republicans and 72 percent of independents.

Making health care affordable was the top priority among those surveyed. Voters want to know what the next president plans to do about rising health costs and the inaccessibility of quality health care.

Surely, health care will come up during the second presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., as voters in the audience and on the Internet get a chance to question the presidential candidates, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

Pay attention: Their plans to provide insurance to more Americans are decidedly different.

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