A new poll shows that a majority of bipartisan voters agree that healthcare is unaffordable, and are open to support a health insurance system not tied to employment.
The poll showed that 69% of voters believe healthcare is unaffordable.
Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit that works to eliminate medical debt and supports policies to prevent new debt, sponsored the poll, which was led by the nonpartisan research firm PerryUndem. Along with a national survey, focus groups were also asked for their opinions on health care.
The poll was first provided to The Hill.
- Among the participants in the poll, 35% said they currently have debt to medical or dental care, and the same 35% say they have skipped medical care due to fear of debt.
- Among participants, 68% said they had made sacrifices to meet their financial goals. Those sacrifices included eating less food, skipping vacations, putting more of their expenses on credit cards, falling behind on bills and borrowing money from friends and family.
- 43% said they had eaten less or purchased less healthy food.
The common ground among 74% of those polled was the focus on health insurance as the culprit of the failure to protect Americans from medical debt.
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.”
76% also wanted their states to pass laws protecting them from medical debt.
81% said they supported the creation of a state-funded health plan that would give residents a more affordable option than commercial plans.
For the survey, 1,319 voters in the 2024 general election were included in a 12-minute national survey. The survey was conducted from Aug. 21 to Sept. 2. The results have a margin of error of 3.63 percentage points.