Saturday, September 01, 2018

We are drifting toward demanding universal health care

The thing about access to health care and health insurance is that this is not something anyone wants to think about unless they are experiencing a current health emergency or have had a terrible experience trying to get help in the past. Republicans' determined effort to take access to care away from people who got it through Obamacare has made these related issues closer to top of mind for a lot of us.

Kaiser Family Foundation has produced some fascinating polling on the shifting, but unsettled, attitudes that living inside the last decade's political wars over Obamacare and repeal has left among the public.

Broadly, the country is drifting toward thinking that it is the government's job to ensure everyone can get medical care when they need it. Roughly six in ten of us think so. Opinions on just how to do that seem unfixed, subject to wavering depending on how a universal health access system is described.
KFF presents this research in 12 slides at the link; all worth pondering.

I've long thought that ditching the wonky designation "single-payer" was a prerequisite to winning on health care access. We seem to be going there.

1 comment:

Rain Trueax said...

I'd be okay with it IF they come up with how we pay for it. If they don't get some control over high prescription drugs and hospital stays, it could take money from every other needed program-- including those for the poor. Still, who wants to see someone denied basic health care. let's just figure out the actual cost as it happens. Pie in the sky usually ends up disaster.