Health Care Fades Into The Background Of 2016 Election Cycle

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With Obamacare battles largely behind us, presidential candidates in 2016 seem focused on other issues.

Health care played starring roles in the 2008 and 2012 election cycles. President Obama’s Affordable Care Act became the battle cry of politicians hoping to ascend to the highest office in the land. But Obamacare passed through the gauntlets of the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court, and came out in tact.

Whether it’s fatigue with the topic of health care, a shift in the public’s priorities, or other campaign year distractions, how we pay for our doctor’s visits has fallen from the top of the nation’s priorities list.

This copyrighted story comes from WHYY’s The Pulse. All rights reserved.

Regardless, though, we wanted to check in on what politicians are saying about health care with Kaiser Health News correspondent Julie Rovner, who acknowledges that candidates this year aren’t really health care-focused, but she reminds us that it’s still an important topic.

“Health care is always going to be an issue in a presidential campaign if the economy is, because it’s kind of a proxy for people’s economic anxiety,” says Rovner.

Rovner spoke with The Pulse host Maiken Scott about the health care policy differences between the candidates.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.