The third edition of Voter Vitals – a tracking poll conducted nationwide and in 2020 battleground states by Locust Street Group for the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future – finds “that health care remains the defining issue of the 2020 presidential election. A supermajority of voters prefer to build on and improve our current health care system rather than replace it with something new. In fact, a majority of voters are less likely to vote for lawmakers who support creating a Medicare for All system in the U.S.”
“The vast majority of Americans are not willing to pay any more in taxes or give up their current health care coverage in favor of new government-controlled health insurance systems. Democratic, swing and Republican voters want lawmakers and candidates to focus on lowering costs and improving what we have today – not start over with a one-size-fits-all system,” said Phillip Morris, Partner of Locust Street Group.
THE FINDINGS:
The latest Voter Vitals tracking poll shows lowering COSTS (73 percent) is the top health care priority for voters.
And with 66 percent of voters in support of building on what’s working in our current health care system, rather than replacing it with something new, it’s clear we don’t need a one-size-fits-all new government insurance system we can’t afford that would raise taxes on middle class families.
THE THIRD EDITION OF VOTER VITALS TRACKS CLOSELY WITH OTHER RECENT NATIONAL POLLING:
- A recent poll from Morning Consult and the Bipartisan Policy Center finds that “[i]mproving the current health-care system received the most support among voters, far more than repealing Obamacare or adopting ‘Medicare-for-All,” Bloomberg reports.
- Recent polls in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin from Third Way “reveal that voters are deeply skeptical about Medicare for All” and “think Medicare for All will lead to middle-class tax hikes and lower quality of care.”
- This tracks closely with another recent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation 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.”
- A recent 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.
- 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.”
- A 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 Allis “a real problem for … candidates. Not just because of the cost, but because few swing voters want to dump private health insurance,” Axios adds.
- POLITICO has noted that polls show “growing opposition to ‘Medicare for All,’” while national poll released by Kaiser in September “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.”