Opinion: Voters favor Democrats on healthcare policy

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If voter attitudes toward the starkly different approaches staked out by the two parties on healthcare translate into actual support for a presidential candidate next year, Democrats will be heartened by the findings of a new L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll.

The detailed results will be available shortly elsewhere on our website and in Thursday’s print edition. We can tell you this much -- overall, the public views the Democrats as offering the better ideas for grappling with the nation’s healthcare problems.

Also, proposals pushed by various Democratic White House contenders that envision aggressive, government-led efforts to expand health insurance coverage enjoy more support than the more hands-off Republican philosophy of relying on tax credits.

In a surprising finding, especially for those who watched the sweeping healthcare plan spearheaded by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton implode in the mid-1990s, the poll found solid backing for a government-run, government-financed health insurance program.

Clinton’s presidential campaign -- and Democrats in general -- have been betting that what happened almost 15 years ago is ancient history. The survey results should buttress that hope.

-- Don Frederick