New poll finds majority of voters say they are low on how health care is in America out of reach and are open to a health insurance system that does not tie coverage to employment.
Unfair Medical Debt, a nonprofit that works to eliminate medical debt and supports policies to prevent new debt, sponsored the survey which was led by the nonpartisan research firm Periundem. Along with a national survey, focus groups were also asked for their opinions on health care.
The poll was first provided to The Hill.
The survey found that 69 percent of voters believe that health care is not affordable today, a figure relatively similar across parties.
Thirty-five percent of participants said they currently owed money or had debt due to medical or dental expenses. The same percentage said they had skipped or delayed medical care in the past year because of fear of medical debt.
Survey participants were asked whether they had made at least one of eight material sacrifices in the past year to meet their financial goals. These include eating less, skipping vacations, putting more of your spending on credit cards, falling behind on bills, and borrowing money from friends and family.
Of those surveyed, 68 percent said they engaged in at least one of these practices, with 43 percent saying they ate less or bought less expensive, less healthy food.
One participant, a 43-year-old uninsured white woman from West Virginia, said in the survey, “I go to a food pantry and work three jobs. You know what I mean? It’s hard, and it shouldn’t be like that.”
Be that difficult. I don’t have time to spend with my children. I don’t have time to work, because
You know, I have to work to eat, and that’s what makes it hard for me.”
“This is a common issue that you know is resonating with people. Health care is clearly unaffordable,” Allison Sesso, president and CEO of Undo Medical Debt, told The Hill.
“What I thought was really interesting was they really focused on insurance,” Sesso said. “Seventy-four percent of people are saying that insurance is failing to protect them from medical debt. And I think that’s a little new to me. Not that it’s new that insurance isn’t doing that well, but such a large percentage of voters on both sides of the aisle were pointing to it as one of the biggest failures.”
63 percent of participants said they blamed insurance companies most for medical debt, followed by pharmaceutical companies at 12 percent and hospitals at 9 percent.
Seventy-six percent of voters said they agreed with the statement: “We need to switch to a different system of health insurance where people can change jobs or become self-employed and not have to worry about losing their health insurance.”
“They want to see a system that doesn’t tie them so tightly to their jobs that it prevents them from moving around,” Sesso said. “And, you know, if you’re not sick, you’re punished for having to stay at a job, and you don’t have the ability to be self-employed, that you have to stay at that job for the insurance aspect.
When it came to addressing medical debt, 76 percent said they would like their states to pass laws to protect them from medical debt. Measures that received significant support included limiting the interest rate allowed on medical debt, limiting the ability of collection agencies to take a person’s belongings due to medical debt, and requiring hospitals to use the same user-friendly application for financial assistance.
Eighty-one percent said they support the creation of a state-funded health plan that would provide residents with more affordable options than commercial plans.
77 percent of voters said they would feel more positive about state elected officials if they passed laws with these measures and 75 percent said they would be more likely to vote for someone if these laws passed.
The ongoing debate over health insurance and making sure people can afford it is what is currently shutting down the federal government. The current shutdown is already the second longest in US history and Democrats are refusing to budge until an agreement is reached to extend Advanced Premium Tax Credit Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace plans.
Sesso said, “I’m not surprised that health care is at the center of this conversation. Medical debt and health care affordability, you know, are one of the few issues that Americans really agree on right now.” “I think they’re not holding their breath for Washington to take action and necessarily save them from Medicare debt, which is why I think they’re, you know, looking for states to take action.”
For the survey, 1,319 voters in the 2024 general elections were surveyed in a 12-minute national survey. The survey was conducted from August 21 to September 2. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.63 percentage points.
