The following is a press release from our friends at ActionNC about powerful polling that shows most voters in battleground states want to move on from the obsession with repealing health reform to a mature discussion of how to improve the law. After more than five years the Affordable Care Act is getting some age on it, and we have learned important lessons from implementation. But we can’t make the law better if lawmakers don’t first accept that it’s a law that is here to stay. As usual, the public has to lead our leaders.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 7, 2015
Contact: Kevin Rogers, 919.862.4009
Survey Shows that Voters Believe “ACA is Here to Stay”
Elected Officials Need to Improve Law; Not Repeal It(Raleigh, NC) — A new survey shows that the majority of likely voters in five key battleground states – Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia – believe the Affordable Care Act is here to stay (64%) and that Congress should work to improve the law (71%).
The survey, which was released by Community Catalyst and Service Employees International Union (SEIU), found that likely voters prefer a candidate who will work to improve the law over one who would repeal it (55% vs. 40%). Most agreed elected officials should “stop wasting time” trying to repeal the law (58%) and instead focus on a variety of improvements to lower the cost of care.
“These research findings confirm what we continue to hear over and over across North Carolina. People are frustrated with repeated efforts to repeal the ACA. It’s time to recognize that the law is here to stay.” said Kevin Rogers, Policy Director for Action NC. “We need to move forward to find ways to continue to lower health care costs for people and address issues such as high copayments and escalating drug prices.”
“Voters understand that the law has led to some important outcomes such as guaranteeing coverage for people with pre-existing health conditions. This research shows that they now want their elected officials to work together to make improvements that favor patients over insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies,” said Rogers.
The survey showed strong support across party lines for improvements that are being considered to lower health care costs, including:
- Require hospitals and other health care providers to be transparent about their prices so people understand what the cost of services will be before they use them (75% strongly support)
- Change the way insurance companies pay doctors and hospitals to create incentives to keep people healthy rather than paying providers based on the number of tests and procedures they give (64% strongly support)
- Give Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices (63% strongly support)
- Expand tax credits to small businesses to help the afford employee health insurance (61% strongly support)
- Give state insurance commissioners more authority to push back on insurance companies that want to hike up insurance premiums (57% strongly support)
The survey was conducted by PerryUndem Research/Communication September 15-19, 2015; 1,005 adults who said they were likely to vote in the 2016 elections and have a history of voting in the 2012 or 2008 elections responded. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percentage points.
You can read more about the poll results here.
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