Voter Support for 'Medicare for All' Plunges: Poll
Health Care

Voter Support for 'Medicare for All' Plunges: Poll

YURI GRIPAS

With Democratic proposals to provide “Medicare for all” increasingly in the headlines — and increasingly the subject of debate over whether the program would or should involve eliminating private insurance — a new Morning Consult/Politico tracking poll finds that the net favorability of a single-payer health plan slipped dramatically from January to February, with support eroding among both Democratic and Republican voters.

Net support for Medicare for all — the difference between the percentage who favor the idea and the percentage who oppose it — was 27 points at the beginning of the year, Morning Consult says. It fell to 12 points in the survey conducted February 7 to 10. Net support dropped by 11 percentage points among Democrats and 21 points among Republicans.

The new poll finds that 50 percent of voters still support Medicare for all — but only about half of those supporters say they would still back the idea if it meant eliminating private insurers. Another 22 percent say they would no longer support it, while 29 percent did not know how they would feel.

More than three-quarters of voters support a “public option” that would let them choose to buy insurance coverage from the government or private insurers.

The tracking poll surveyed 1,991 voters and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

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