Rhetoric Vs. Reality: Most Americans Don’t Want ‘Medicare For All’

RHETORIC:

• “[Sen. Bernie] Sanders said polls also show more and more people support ‘Medicare for all’ — the plan for a national, single-payer health care insurance program that he campaigned for when he lost the 2016 Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton,” the Associated Press reports.

REALITY:

• Polls show that most Americans oppose Medicare for all once they know what it is, and most Democratic voters favor strengthening the Affordable Care Act over pursuing Medicare for all.  A national poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that support for Medicare for all “drops as low as -44 percentage points” when people find out it would “lead to delays in some people getting some medical tests and treatments,” and “is also negative if people hear it would threaten the current Medicare program (-28 percentage points), require most Americans to pay more in taxes (-23 percentage points), or eliminate private health insurance companies (-21 percentage points).”  Another national survey by Kaiser found that most Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents “say they want Democrats in Congress to focus their efforts on improving and protecting the ACA,” not pursuing Medicare for all.

Notably, as Medicare for all “falters,” some elected officials and 2020 presidential hopefuls are turning to so-called “moderate” fallback proposals, often branded “public option” or “Medicare buy-in.”  In reality, these proposed government insurance programs would lead to the same result Americans so clearly reject: a one-size-fits-all health care system run by Washington.

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