FRIENDSHIP HEIGHTS, MD – New polling on single-payer Medicare for All again reveals that when people are told what Medicare for All actually is, support for it drastically drops.
Polling conducted May 31 – June 3 month by the Navigator Research reveals that 53% of respondents are opposed to a Medicare for All program that eliminates private insurance. The poll found that allowing people to buy in or keep private insurance has a net approval of +46%, while eliminating private insurance has a net approval of -6%.
Section 107 of the single-payer Medicare for All legislation authored by Senator Sanders (and cosponsored by Senator Harris, Senator Warren, and others) states that private insurance for any benefits covered by Medicare is illegal.
The pollsters found that “support for Medicare for All is driven more by branding with the term ‘Medicare’ than by specific knowledge of the program.” Similarly, a KFF Health Tracking Poll released today found evidence that “most Americans don’t realize how dramatically the Medicare for All proposals would revamp the Nation’s health care system.”
A Hill-HarrisX poll from February found that only 13% of respondents would prefer a health care system that covers all citizens and doesn’t allow for private plans.
“The supposed political popularity of Medicare for All is a myth,” said John Delaney. “People like Medicare and they like the phrase, but when people are told what this legislation actually does, most people don’t want it. Making private insurance illegal is bad policy and bad politics and the truth is, the leading supporters of Medicare for All know this – that’s why they attacked me. If the truth I dared to speak was actually politically unpopular, it would have made no sense for some people to demand that I drop out of the race, particularly since I had already proposed a universal health care plan that gives every American a health care plan for free, but allows for the continuation of private insurance. But instead, they don’t want there to be any debate at all. I’m not going to let that happen.”
Delaney’s universal health care plan, BetterCare, provides everyone with a government plan as a right, but allows people to opt out and purchase private insurance or supplemental plans.
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