The Emotional Temperatures Surrounding Healthcare Issues
During an election and at anytime for that matter, key issues facing the country and individuals are as important as who is running for office or the ideology of those running. These issues vary from healthcare and immigration to social and financial issues. This measurement was conducted during the midterm election and will be repeated shortly We will present each issue topic separately and then summarize all area of interest.
We begin this week with healthcare. That will be followed by issue categories as follows:
Economic & Immigration
Social & Domestic
Electoral
When evaluating the emotional temperature of Democrats and Republicans in regard to healthcare issues on a side- by-side scale, clear differences can be seen. The overall breadth of engagement that exists amongst Democrats is far greater than that of Republicans, indicating that engagement concerning healthcare issues varies more on the left.
These differences are revealed even further when evaluated on an issue-by-issue basis. The most salient issues that exist amongst Democratic respondents include universal healthcare (coverage for all), the recognition of pre-existing conditions and the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare).
The large gap that exists between the higher and lower temperature issues shows us that a few issues are far more important to Democrats than others. The issues that fall at the bottom of the thermometer all deal with the current state of our healthcare system, while the more important issues to Democrats deal with opportunities for direct-legislative action.
The emotional responses of Republicans surrounding healthcare issues differs immensely from the responses of Democrats. Republican responses were more self-focused, with an emphasis on the need for insurance policies to cover pre-existing conditions, the quality of healthcare and the overall state of the American healthcare system.
Republicans are more optimistic than Democrats when it comes to the overall state, quality and cost of healthcare in the United States. Additionally, the low temperature response associated with the Affordable Care Act helps confirm that the Republican response to healthcare issues aligns with the party’s agenda and platform.
All of the temperature gauges seen in this article were developed and measured by and with AdSAM. AdSAM measures three key factors of emotion, appeal, engagement and empowerment, using a cross cultural, gender free visual measure of emotion.
For more information about AdSAM’s deliverables and methodology, check out our website! Additionally, please refer to the below slideshow for a comprehensive look at AdSAM’s measure of healthcare issues.
