New Kaiser Poll: Public Option Support ‘Slipping’

WASHINGTON – As the higher taxes and harmful consequences of new government-controlled health insurance systems continue to be made clear to Americans, a new national poll released by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) finds “support for a public option is slipping,” POLITICO reports.  The poll also finds that Medicare for All “support wanes when voters hear trade-offs,” Becker’s Hospital Review adds.

Recently, 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.

While 2020 presidential hopefuls continue to face tough questions about their support for new government-controlled health insurance systems, 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.”

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