Americans Are Moving Toward A Medicare-For-All System

The chart above reflects the results of a recent Morning Consult Poll -- done between October 11th and 15th of a national sample of 1,961 registered voters, with a 2 point margin of error.

Americans know that this country has a broken health care system. Millions of citizens don't have insurance, which means they don't have access to critical preventative care. The cost of insurance premiums is rising rapidly, and so is the cost of health care in general -- and both are rising much faster than wages (or inflation in general). Even middle class families find themselves being priced out of the insurance market, and one medical emergency away from bankruptcy (even with insurance).

Americans also know that Obamacare only made things marginally better, but did not cover all citizens and did not control health care costs. They also know the Republicans have only made things worse since assuming power -- also failing to control medical costs and driving insurance prices up faster by doing away with the individual mandate. Now they want to eliminate the protections for those with pre-existing conditions, and allow the sale of cheap insurance policies that cover next-to-nothing.

It's not hard to realize that health care is one of the most important issues on the minds of voters in this election. But what is to be done? How can we really fix our broken system?

I have been convinced for quite a while now that we need a government-run single-payer health insurance system -- something like a Medicare-for-All system. Medicare works very well for the seniors in this country, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work for all Americans. Coupled with laws permitting the government to negotiate medical care and drug costs, the system would eliminate profit and much overhead, thus resulting in a saving of money for the country. It would also help businesses by reducing the costs they pay for employee insurance.

I did think though that it would probably take quite a while to convince most Americans of this. It looks like I may have been wrong. Americans seem to be moving toward accepting a Medicare-for-All system much faster than expected.

As the chart above shows, a significant majority of American registered voters would support such a system (59% support to 30% oppose). And every demographic group but one (Republicans) has a majority supporting Medicare-for-All. And Republicans don't have a majority against, but just a plurality (46% oppose to 42% support).

These numbers tell me that the time for a real debate on universal health care coverage (especially a Medicare-for-All program) has come. Maybe now we can finally get serious about fixing our broken health care system, and providing all citizens with decent health care.