WASHINGTON — Although President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act continues to animate political debate in Washington and on the campaign trail, Americans are more concerned with basic health care issues such as the cost of their health insurance, a new national poll shows.
The health care law ranked eighth among issues voters identified as most likely to be extremely important to their vote for president this year, with 23 percent identifying the 2010 legislation.
Concern about how much people were paying personally for health care and health insurance tied for third, with 28 percent of voters saying the issue would be very important.
The top two issues were terrorism, cited by 38 percent of voters, and the economy and jobs, picked by 34 percent, according to the survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.
The findings underscore a transition underway in the national health care debate, nearly six years after the Affordable Care Act was enacted.
While the public remains deeply divided over the law, particularly along partisan lines, Americans increasingly point to pocketbook concerns including drug prices and surprise medical bills as issues they want elected officials to tackle.
At the same time, Americans also remain generally satisfied with their own health insurance and medical care, a sentiment illustrated again by the latest Kaiser poll.
These complex public sentiments are helping drive contrasting health care platforms from the 2016 presidential candidates.
The Republican contenders all pledge to repeal the health care law, amid vows to replace it with something that will further reduce costs.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is advocating an even more sweeping proposal that would move all Americans into a single government-run health insurance plan that he says would lower their premiums.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sanders’ rival for the Democratic nomination, has offered a more incremental platform that would build on the current law by imposing new regulations on drugmakers and insurance companies.
“There has always been a bit of a disconnect between people’s views of the overall health care system and their own personal experiences with medical care and health insurance,” said Mollyann Brodie, who directs Kaiser’s polls.
Nearly three-quarters of nonelderly adults with health coverage say they believe their insurance plans are worth the amount they cost, and more than 6 in 10 say their health plans are either “excellent” or “good” values.
The Kaiser survey also picked up limited concern about narrowing insurance networks, even though health plans’ moves to restrict the number of doctors in their networks have gained attention.
Just 12 percent of nonelderly Americans with insurance said they were “very dissatisfied” or “somewhat dissatisfied” with the choice of doctors in their health plans, while 87 percent said they were “very satisfied or somewhat satisfied.”
The poll was conducted Jan. 13 to Jan. 19 among 1,204 American adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Poll highlights
38 percent: Share of voters who said terrorism would be extremely important to their vote for president
34 percent: Share of voters who said the economy and jobs would be extremely important to their vote for president
23 percent: Share of voters who said the Affordable Care Act would be extremely important to their vote for president
Source: Kasier Family Foundation
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