Poll: Health care not main motivation for voters choosing president

Voters cited the health law as the third most important topic they considered last week -- behind the economy and the candidates' personal characteristics -- according to a new poll.

Kaiser Health News: Capsules blog: Health Law Was A Wash In The Election, Poll Finds
President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney ended up getting equal support among voters who said the law was a 'major factor' in their vote for president, according to the poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted shortly after last Tuesday's election. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) This shouldn't come as a surprise since the public remained consistently split about the law throughout the election season (Rau, 11/13).

Modern Healthcare: Health Care Ranked Third As Top Ballot Issue
Conducted from Nov. 7-10, the survey of 1,223 respondents asked voters to identify the top two factors in their decision, without providing choices. The results showed that 55 percent of those who voted to re-elect President Barack Obama and 48 percent of those who voted for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney cited candidate characteristics and candidate record as the top factor. ... The survey results also showed that voters considered more than the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act when asked about healthcare (Zigmond, 11/13).

CQ HealthBeat: Kaiser: Health Care Didn't Motivate Voters, Repeal Fervor Fades
Lawmakers debating health policy in the lame duck and next year in the new session of Congress will do so knowing that the issue didn't carry as much weight with voters as it might have appeared during the election campaign, a new survey released Tuesday suggests. The Kaiser Family Foundation poll also found, though, that the share of those surveyed who want to see the health care law repealed dropped to a new low of 33 percent (Norman, 11/13).