NYT: Anxiety about health-care costs tops list of economic concerns for voters

With rising gas prices, a scary housing market and stagnating wages comes concern about the economy. But according to an article in Wednesday’s New York Times, anxiety about health-care costs is also contributing to fears about a slowing economy.

The article’s author, Janet Elder, makes an argument that perhaps health care should not be put into its own category in polls; she writes that it should be grouped with other economic concerns, such as the job market.

Elder quotes respondents from an October CBS News poll that were called back recently to discuss the health-care issue.

Michael Reid, 54, a computer data manager from Brooklyn, who says he is a Democrat, worries about health care. “At the present moment I have full health insurance coverage because I’m working,” Reid said, “but I have no idea what will happen when I retire.

“We should have some kind of major national health care, like in Canada or England,” he said. “I think health care is more important than Iraq.”