Most Americans now favor government-paid health insurance for all, according to a ‌new poll, as voters across party lines see major healthcare reforms as a priority less than a month before midterm elections to decide control of the US Congress.

Two-thirds of US adults — up from 53% in 2020 — said they are in favor of universal US health insurance often referred to as “Medicare for all,” according to a poll conducted by health policy research firm KFF released on Tuesday.

By party affiliation, 84% of respondents who identify as Democrats and 72% of independent voters were in favor, while 66% of Republicans were opposed.

When told such ⁠a single-payer model would eliminate private insurance plans, that overall support dropped to 52% — still well ahead of the 37% favorability seen in the 2020 survey.

    • doingthestuff@lemy.lol
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      2 days ago

      We gave Obama a supermajority and he couldn’t get it done. He gave us insurance mandates with terribly high costs that resulted in people having insurance but no care. I’m speaking from personal experience.

      • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        2 days ago

        eh, i’m disabled. insurance for a family now is still less than i had to pay for individual insurance then. last time i did the math it had to be a family of seven to make it equivalent but costs change constantly.

      • Gpennyhigh@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 days ago

        No, others demanded that insurance remain in the system and not allow price negotiations, making it cost more than everyone in one pool. Expanded Medicaid has improved lives and better health outcomes where it was adopted if anyone cares to look. Less medical bankruptcy and able to use healthcare to live better, as it should be for everyone.

        Some states have healthcare for all incomes which shows proven results. Paid leave shows benefits to human health and business too, yet people still oppose them and vote against good for all. Healthcare pool with everyone spreads the risk and cost the most, remove middle profit waste, set reasonable prices, use the policies that already work great. Enough excuses why this or that didn’t work, and use what does work for high quality of life! We can have nice things too!

  • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    2 days ago

    Of course, we have known this for decades and the support grows every year.

    Voters also want higher minimum wage. It doesn’t matter.

    Voters also want term limits. It doesn’t matter.

    Voters also want no war and reduced military spending. It doesn’t matter.

    BoTh PaRtIeS know what the voters want, and they choose to do what Amazon wants instead for some unknown reason.

    I wonder why? It is one of the greatest mysteries of science.

  • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    41
    ·
    3 days ago

    When told such ⁠a single-payer model would eliminate private insurance plans, that overall support dropped to 52% — still well ahead of the 37% favorability seen ​in the 2020 survey.

    That’s weird to me. Are people really that impressed with their private insurance plans? Because I’ve had several private plans in my life and none of them were better than Medicare, for the price.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      32
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 days ago

      Are people really that impressed with their private insurance plans?

      No, its just the people, generally, are dumb as fuck. They barely know what words mean, let alone what they communicate when they come together into sentences.

      • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        2 days ago

        ugh

        Reagan warns that if his listeners do not stop the proposed medical program, “behind it will come other government programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country until one day as Norman Thomas said we will wake to find that we have socialism.” Under this scenario, Reagan says, “We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

        I got nausea reading this webpage.

        “pretty soon your son won’t decide when he’s in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him.”

        boke

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 days ago

          This is a key bit of history, probably one of the dominoes that led to Dump. This album helped to give Ronnie his start in politics. Which ultimately led to him being in the WH for eight years. At that point, his administration was objectively the most criminal administration in history. This culminated in Iran/Contra, which was worse than Watergate, but mostly was glossed over, with his VP becoming President, and Ronnie Raygun getting to skate completely.

          The conservatives did a huge amount of damage to everything under his watch, paving the way for hate radio and Faux.

          The Republicans didn’t pay any real cost for his crimes and spent the 90s trying to get their favorite criminal’s name on virtually everything and retconning virtually anything associated with Ronnie Raygun…all while building alternative information outlets to erode trust in democracy and democratic institutions and government in general…

          So much about where we are at goes back to Raygun (and Nixon).

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 days ago

      It might be an elitist thing. If everyone has the same healthcare, you don’t get to feel superior about your superior insurance plan.

      Most private insurance is totally ass, but if you work for a company that offers higher-quality insurance plans and you can afford to pay the highest premiums, then you have highly privileged healthcare access. They might be worried about losing that, or having to compete with the poors to get an appointment for stuff that they currently can’t afford.

      Can’t imagine it would account for a 14 point drop, but then again some people are stupid and will come out against something that would benefit them just because they worship the rich or whatever.

  • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    2 days ago

    People shouldn’t need to be involved with paying for their necessary healthcare at all. Just show up get treated and leave. Providers can bill the government and fight it out if something was found to be unnecessary. Leave the patient out of it.

  • BooBees@fedinsfw.app
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 days ago

    Cool, let anyone who wants to opt out, and everyone who doesn’t is automatically signed up, just like how many nations automatically sign you up as a voter or for healthcare. Don’t want to have govt healthcare? Cool, you’re free to stay on private insurance that will skyrocket and collapse soon as the world adapts to a better system. We gotta stop letting malignant narcissists, sadists and the brainwashed ruin everything for everyone else.

    • Hapankaali@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 days ago

      I’ve lived in 4 European countries, and none had the option to “opt out” of health care coverage (other than being an illegal resident). It makes no sense to have that option anyway, it’s like being able to opt out of paying taxes for education.

      • Kirp123@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 days ago

        In pretty much all European countries you can still get private insurance if you want to. And some people do for various reasons. The difference is that if something happens with your private insurance, like you can’t pay anymore or whatever you still have the public insurance to fall back on. Just because everyone gets public insurance doesn’t mean private one is banned on something.

        • Hapankaali@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 days ago

          In fact, in a few European countries the system is more private and doesn’t even have the equivalent of Medicare or Medicaid.

          It’s just regulated in a somewhat less moronic way than the US health care system.

        • Hapankaali@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 days ago

          Even then it doesn’t make sense. The cost for people not having insurance, even if they don’t want it, is borne by society, and is generally higher than if they did have insurance.

        • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          2 days ago

          When they show up in the ER with a heart attack they’re going to get treatment we can’t pay for and we’ll be right back to square one with all of this shit

          Also, nobody gave me the option to opt out of paying for the bombs out dumbass military drops on schools and other civilian infrastructure, don’t know why this is any different

  • sculptor0725@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    2 days ago

    When told such ⁠a single-payer model would eliminate private insurance plans, that overall support dropped to 52%

    Stockholm Syndrome was always fake and a lie so what the fuck is wrong with these idiots?

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      2 days ago

      Give people a smelly gym sock and let them hold it for five minutes and they’ll reflexively try to stop you from taking it back. Getting over 50% yes to a survey question that says “and then we will take something away from you” is honestly pretty crazy.

    • Triumph@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 days ago

      Except that it wouldn’t. Private insurance would just have to find a way to be competitive.

  • Pratai@piefed.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    3 days ago

    How long before most Americans realize what they want doesn’t fucking matter?

  • bertlewirth@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    3 days ago

    wait wait wait, you’re telling me people already stretched to the limit DON’T want to pay $900 a month for insulin, or if they get sick, going BANKRUPT?!?!?

    • StabbingSky@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      3 days ago

      They don’t want their tax dollars paying for other people’s health care. No joke, this is a Republican argument against it.

      What they fail to realize is that private insurance works the exact same way. All the money is pooled.

      Another reason is the “death panels”, again failing to realize that private insurance is already doing that.

      • bertlewirth@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        3 days ago

        I regularly make this argument, that they essentially have medicare for some* already, except there’s a middleman, and he takes a MASSIVE cut.

        • Jesus_666@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          3 days ago

          Except it’s not for all. They get all of the downsides but few of the upsides.

          It’s like they’re paying for something, not receiving what they paid for, and being told they don’t want what they’re paying for in the first place. Expect they’re also wildly overpaying.

  • Gpennyhigh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    2 days ago

    This might help look at some reasons that poll majority doesn’t result in votes for it, and how to get this, which would be great, and with protections so maga doesn’t ruin it if it ever starts and people see it’s better than now. We can see how it improved lives where Medicaid expanded.

    How does the psychological strain of artificial scarcity, like the threat of medical bankruptcy or social displacement, create a cognitive trap that drives people to vote against their own material needs and embrace exclusionary, fear-based politics instead of universal safety nets that could relieve their suffering?

  • SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    That won’t happen. Whatever emerges after fascism collapses will be so economically weak, years of deep austerity will be the future.

  • farmgineer@nord.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    3 days ago

    Japan’s system is single-payer and definitely better than the US system in every interaction I’ve had. I say this as someone who used to work in US Healthcare IT on a few occasions.

    There should be some system in place to help the people whose jobs would be lost by cutting all of the extra stuff out. Some may survive if, like many countries, the US allows private options, but a lot of jobs would be made redundant by this.

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 days ago

      There should be some system in place to help the people whose jobs would be lost by cutting all of the extra stuff out.

      We have systems of unemployment insurance and other kinds of welfare programs. I definitely agree those should be stepped up in general for everyone, but I don’t know why these specific people would deserve anything beyond what we normally do for people who lose their jobs.

      • farmgineer@nord.pub
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 days ago

        I fully agree it should be better for everyone. Why I think the case is special is the potentially high number of joblessness at once often also located in certain condensed areas. It would also potentially have knock-on effects to other businesses and city services.

  • Cousin Mose@lemmy.hogru.ch
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    3 days ago

    I’ve been seeing this headline more or less my entire adult life, it doesn’t necessarily do any good when people vehemently against it keep getting elected.