Health Care Promises To Be Sizable Voting Issue in 2020

Voters continue to criticize the quality of health care in America and rate cost reduction as a key reform. Health care is also shaping up as a critical voting issue again next year.

Eighty-five percent (85%) of Likely U.S. Voters say health care is important to their vote in the 2020 presidential election, with 45% who say it’s Very Important, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey. This compares to 87% and 55% respectively last October just before the midterm national elections.

Just 14% rate health care as not very or Not At All Important to their vote next year. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Consistent with regular surveying since mid-2012, 33% of voters rate the U.S. health care system as good or excellent. Just as many (32%) consider it poor.

In terms of reforming health care, 54% still say reducing the cost of care is more important than making sure everyone has health insurance. But that’s down from a high of 62% in March 2017 shortly after President Trump took office. Thirty-nine percent (39%) rate a health insurance mandate as more important.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on June 17-18, 2019 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

While voters are critical of the U.S. health care system in general, 67% rate the care they personally receive as good or excellent.

The health care mandate was a key feature of Obamacare, but it was repealed by Trump and the Republican Congress. This helps explain why 70% of GOP voters – and 58% of voters not affiliated with either major party – rate cost reduction as the more important health care reform, while 60% of Democrats put more emphasis on making sure everyone has health insurance.

Democrats and unaffiliated voters are much more critical of the current health care system than Republicans are. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Democrats say health care is Very Important to their vote in the 2020 presidential election, compared to 32% of GOP voters and 38% of unaffiliateds.

Just 35% of all voters think the government should require every American to buy or obtain health insurance. Most voters opposed Obamacare’s individual health insurance mandate from the start.

Most Americans still consider themselves healthy, but many continue to pass on medical checkups and prescription drugs to save money.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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