New Quinnipiac Poll: Majority Of Americans Say One-Size-Fits-All Government Health Insurance System Is ‘Bad Idea’

WASHINGTON – A new national poll from Quinnipiac University, finds that “Medicare for All has grown increasingly unpopular among all American voters,” with a majority saying it’s a “bad idea.” Medicare for All is “a real problem for … candidates.  Not just because of the cost, but because few swing voters want to dump private health insurance,” Axios adds. 

Recently, Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) CEO Drew Altman wrote in Axios that support for Medicare for All is “headed in the wrong direction” – meaning down – while “polling shows that support drops much further, and opposition rises, when people hear some of the most common arguments against Medicare for All.” 

Meanwhile, another recent poll from Kaiser and the Cook Political Report finds that nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of swing voters in the states of Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin rate Medicare for All as a “bad idea.”  In fact, The Wall Street Journal reports that in Michigan, “supporters of a single-payer health care system are finding a tough audience.”  They continue:

Union members in this labor stronghold state have expressed unease with Medicare for All, fearing they would lose health benefits that were hard-won over years of negotiations …A survey of 600 likely voters commissioned by the Detroit Regional Chamber this summer found that a majority opposed a Medicare for All proposal that would eliminate private health insurance, as proposed by Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders … Michigan illustrates the risk Democrats face in swing states.  The policy appeals to Democrats’ liberal base but is less popular with moderates, polls show.

The Quinnipiac poll also comes after another national poll by Kaiser finds that Medicare for All “support wanes when voters hear trade-offs,” Becker’s Hospital Review reports.

POLITICO has noted that polls show “growing opposition to ‘Medicare for All,’” while another national poll by Kaiser “probes Democrats’ views about the general approaches to expanding health coverage and lowering costs” and finds that “[m]ost Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (55%) say they prefer a candidate who would build on the Affordable Care Act to achieve those goals.  Fewer (40%) prefer a candidate who would replace the ACA with a Medicare-for-all plan.”

A separate poll released by Kaiser in July found support for Medicare for All on the decline, as “a larger share of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents would prefer lawmakers build on the existing ACA” and “the share of Democrats who now say they ‘strongly favor’ a national Medicare-for-all plan is down” 12 percentage points in the three months since Kaiser last asked the question.

Previous national polling data released by Kaiser revealed that “majorities of Americans are unaware of the kind of dramatic changes that [Medicare for all] would bring to the nation’s health care system.”  However, “[t]here’s one thing Americans understand about Medicare-for-all: It would mean higher taxes … Americans seem most familiar with the fact that Medicare-for-all would require massively higher taxes,” The Washington Post reports.  As Kaiser noted, “[t]he survey finds eight in 10 Americans (78%) are aware that taxes would increase for most people under such a plan.”

Meanwhile, another recent national poll by Kaiser finds “support for a public option is slipping,” POLITICO reports.  That’s probably because the falsely deemed more “moderate” public option would lead to the same one-size-fits-all government-controlled health insurance system according to a new study.  The study released by FTI Consulting and the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future reveals a new government-controlled health insurance system known as the public option could eliminate consumer choice for millions of Americans and “eventually cause the elimination of all private plans in the individual market.”  The study finds:

• After the first 10 years of the public option, more than seven million current enrollees would no longer have private coverage through the marketplaces – with two million of those enrollees being forced off their private plans as insurers exit the marketplaces altogether.
   
• The study also warns that the public option could eventually cause the elimination of all private plans in the individual marketplaces, eliminating choice for millions of health care consumers, even those with the resources or subsidies available to cover their preferred plan.
   
• In fact, the report finds that by 2050, 70 percent of state marketplaces (34 U.S. states) would no longer offer a single private insurance option.
   
• Rural families – millions of whom already find their access to quality care at risk – would be especially hard hit by the public option, the study warns, and could find few if any options available to them.

Another study by KNG Health Consulting, LLC reveals that “Medicare for America,” a proposed new government-controlled health insurance system, could force one-third of American workers off of their current employer provided health care coverage, also known as employer-sponsored insurance (ESI).  And The Wall Street Journal reports that new government health insurance systems like the public option, Medicare buy-in and ‘Medicare for all who want it,’ represent “stepping stones to single payer.”  

An earlier study, conducted by Navigant for the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, finds that the public option could put more than 1,000 rural U.S. hospitals in 46 states “at high risk of closure.”  These hospitals serve more than 60 million Americans, and as Kaiser Health News and NPR report, hospital closures can have “profound social, emotional and medical consequences,” while RevCycleIntelligence also reports, “[p]atient access to care suffers when a rural hospital closes its doors for good, and consequently, patient outcomes can deteriorate.”

###