Demographic Divide on Health Care

It's no surprise that health-care reform is in such a mire. According to a USA Today poll, it's not political ideology so much as age, race, wealth, and geography that have split Americans on the issue. Seniors are the most resistant to changing the current system, but think controlling costs is most important; two-thirds of blacks and six in 10 Hispanics think the focus of reform should be expanding coverage to the uninsured, while six in 10 whites think it should be controlling costs; Westerners say expanding coverage is more important, while Southerners think it's controlling costs. Meanwhile, in an op-ed in USA Today, Democratic Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer condemned health-care reform opponents who disrupted town hall meetings between members of congress and their constituents. "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American," they wrote. "Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades."