Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson.

On Saturday in Las Vegas, seven presidential candidates will have to take a stand on Americans' top domestic priority: health care.

That is what organizers of the candidates' forum being held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas said Wednesday as they unveiled new local and national poll data.

"The winds of change are blowing around the country about health care," said Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, which commissioned the poll as part of its Americans for Health Care project.

"Voters consistently place health care among their top concerns," he said. Among both Democrats and Republicans who say they are likely to participate in their parties' presidential nominating contests, "it's the top domestic issue and the second most important issue overall," Stern said Wednesday in a national conference call.

And that was no less true in Nevada, where pollsters surveyed 407 likely caucus-goers from both parties.

Twenty-six percent of Nevada poll respondents said health care and prescription drugs was their first or second concern, second only to the situation in Iraq, which drew 40 percent, and tied with terrorism and national security.

The poll was conducted by Lake Research Partners in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- states that are scheduled to hold early nominating contests for one or both parties in 2008. Nevada is to host a first-time early Democratic caucus on Jan. 19.

The national poll of 1,607 voters in the four states carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The margin is higher on the Nevada sample.

The first big Las Vegas event of the Nevada caucus is scheduled for Saturday, when the union is co-sponsoring a forum focusing on health care that seven Democratic candidates have agreed to attend. Officials said Wednesday that Republican contenders were invited, but none wanted to come, probably because Nevada does not have an early Republican contest.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Chris Dodd, former Sen. John Edwards, former Sen. Mike Gravel, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Barack Obama and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson are scheduled to attend the event scheduled for 9:15 a.m. Saturday at the Cox Pavilion at UNLV.

Sen. Joe Biden is the only Democratic candidate not attending. Biden was scheduled to speak at two events Wednesday night in Carson City, but canceled to stay in Washington, D.C., for a vote.

Clinton, Dodd, Obama and Richardson are scheduled to speak at a Friday evening rally of the Culinary union in Las Vegas.

"We see this forum in Las Vegas as an important next step and critical to getting the political momentum we need" to make health care a priority, said John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the event's other co-sponsor.

"We expect the candidates to commit to affordable health care for all," he said. "We have high hopes that what happens in Las Vegas will actually leave Las Vegas and will set the tone for the entire presidential campaign."

Celinda Lake, president of the polling firm, said its most surprising finding was the wide bipartisan agreement on the need for major change in America's health care system.

Of the poll respondents nationally, 79 percent agreed with the idea, "We need to move beyond piecemeal reform because our health care system needs to be fundamentally overhauled" -- 88 percent of Democratic voters and 71 percent of Republicans.

In Nevada, 81 percent of those surveyed agreed, while 15 percent disagreed with that statement.

Local and national voters also expressed a desire to hear more from presidential candidates about the issue.

Asked how much the candidates were talking about health care, 47 percent of Nevadans and 43 percent of all those surveyed said "too little"; 14 percent of Nevadans and 12 percent of all respondents said "too much."

Among Democrats, Clinton polled best on the health care issue, with 34 percent of Nevadans and 35 percent of all surveyed saying they thought she was the best candidate for health care. Edwards was second, Obama third, and about a quarter of those polled said they didn't know.

Out of the Republican field, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was first, with 23 percent of Nevadans and 17 percent of national Republicans saying they liked him best on health care. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was second in Nevada, while Sen. John McCain was third. Nationally, Romney and McCain were tied, and about a third of Republicans said they didn't know.

Stern said the hosts of Saturday's forum would be looking for the candidates in attendance to have concrete ideas about health care.

"What we'd like is some specificity," he said. "Candidates have had plenty of time to understand the health care issue. It's no longer an issue of simple policy. It's about leadership."