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Economy, Health Care Still Top Voters’ List of Important Issues

House Republicans are plotting aggressive spending cuts and planning to defund the national health care law in efforts to stimulate the anemic economy, the issue that remains at the forefront of voters’ minds.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 83% see the economy as a Very Important issue in terms of how they vote. That’s down slightly from results found in December, but the economy has earned top billing over the past several years among 10 issues regular surveyed on by Rasmussen Reports. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

The number of voters who sees the economy as being Very Important in terms of how they vote has not dipped below 80% since September 2008.

Voters continue to trust the GOP more than Democrats on all 10 issues that Rasmussen Reports regularly asks about, including the economy, health care, taxes and immigration.

Health care comes in second to the economy in terms of importance among voters, with 72% who regard it as Very Important. The number of voters who saw health care as being Very Important hovered in the high 50s to low 60s in the year prior to President Obama’s inauguration, but interest began to rise as the debate over a national health care reform law heated up. Those who view health care as Very Important have ranged from 66% to 79% since the law’s passage last March.

The majority of all voters still support repeal of the national health care law and remain convinced that it will drive up the cost and hurt the quality of health care in the country. 

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.  

Two surveys of 1,000 Likely Voters nationwide were conducted on February 6-9, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error for each survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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