US Healthcare 2019: What Poll Shows About Medicare-For-All

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s healthcare proposals are more popular than the Medicare-for-all plan touted by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, a poll indicated Wednesday.

The USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll indicates voters are leary of eliminating private health insurance, something Sanders, I-Vt., and Warren, D-Mass., advocate.

The poll indicates 48% of eligible voters supporting a government-run option that would still allow for private plans with 14% opposed and 38% indicating they need more information. Thirty-nine percent said they support a full, government-run healthcare plan that eliminates private plans with 34% opposed.

Biden has long argued the Affordable Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare, should be improved, not scrapped, and should be augmented with a government-run option.

President Trump and other Republicans have been attempting to gut Obamacare but have failed to produce a plan of their own. As a result, the number of Americans without health insurance is again climbing.

Healthcare is expected to be among the main issues shaping the 2020 presidential race, with Biden, Sanders and Warren among the more than dozen candidates still jockeying to capture the Democratic presidential nomination.

The poll indicated support for Medicare-for-All is divided along partisan lines and could prove a polarizing issue during the campaign.

U.S. healthcare spending totals $3.2 trillion annually with about two-thirds of that funded by the federal government. It accounts for 18 percent of the gross domestic product.

Several bills expanding the government’s role in healthcare coverage have been introduced in Congress. The measure introduced by Sanders (S1129) would set up a single national insurance program for U.S. residents financed through taxes, replacing all private insurance, Medicaid, Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

To pay for the plan, Sanders would base premiums income and impose a 7.5% payroll tax as well as increase marginal income tax rates on those making more than $250,000 annually, with a wealth tax imposed on the top 0.1% of earners. Capital gains and dividends would be taxed the same way income is. Sanders also has proposed closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and revamping the estate tax. Other financing proposals include a one-time tax on currently held offshore profits, a fee on large institutions and a repeal of corporate accounting gimmicks.

Other bills would allow people to opt out of a national program, offer government-run plans through the ACA marketplace and allow older Americans not yet 65 to buy into Medicare. Another would offer a Medicaid buy-in option through the ACA marketplace.

Warren long has advocated for a single-payer system to protect families from financial ruin resulting from illness or injury. She has said the ACA didn’t go far enough to protect Americans and it’s time for the Democratic Party to move forward with a bolder plan. She has signed on to Sanders’ bill but also has expressed support for a less radical solution like tacking on a government option to the ACA.

Biden long has been a strong supporter of the ACA and highly critical of Republican efforts to repeal the measure. Biden would add a public option modeled after Medicare to the ACA, increase tax credits to lower premiums and expand coverage to low-income Americans. He also would work to control costs and take the surprises out of medical billing. Biden has proposed using antitrust law to reverse the consolidation of the medical industry and tackle prescription drug costs.