Summary

A Gallup poll shows 62% of Americans believe the government should ensure universal healthcare coverage—the highest support in over a decade.

While Democratic backing remains strong at 90%, support among Republicans and Independents has also grown since 2020.

Public frustration with the for-profit healthcare system has intensified following the arrest of a suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, reportedly motivated by anger at the industry.

Recent controversies, including Anthem’s rollback of anesthesia coverage cuts, and debates over Medicare privatization highlight ongoing dissatisfaction with the system.

  • brezel@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    12 days ago

    somehow this doesn’t correlate with the > 50% that just voted against it.

    • crusa187@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      23
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      12 days ago

      Show me where Kamala or the DNC were promoting Medicare for all (or any improvements to healthcare for that matter) in this election cycle? And don’t say negotiating prices on 10 more prescription drugs or I’ll know you’re completely unserious.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        12 days ago

        The Dems aren’t saint on the topic, but they also aren’t explicitly against it.

        The Rrpublicans have been very clear that taking healthcare away from millions of people is a party priority. The only reason it didn’t happen last time was because of 1 Republican Senator willing to fall on his sword shortly before death and end his career a pariah of the party.

      • brezel@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        12 days ago

        i did’t say that dems are for it. i said reps are against it. maybe take more time to take in what someone says before arguing against something else.

        • crusa187@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          11 days ago

          R voters also happen to want good healthcare - shocking I know. My point is that the politicians are in bipartisan agreement that profits and lining their own pockets with bribe money is more important than American lives.

          My broader point is that Dems lost so many voters because they didn’t indicate any willingness to change from Biden’s policies on this matter. And, obviously, it’s so bad that the people have reached an extreme breaking point. Sadly this allowed Trump to position himself as the change candidate and win, even though in actuality it will be change for the worse through further privatization and rolling back the possibility of those with preexisting conditions to get coverage at all. It’s barbaric, and the Dems were supposed to do so much better for the working class in this area.

          • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            11 days ago

            Break the two party system with state level electoral reform.

            The democratic party is not more important then the United States of America.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    12 days ago

    The midterm campaign should literally just be, “Death to Health Insurance, Public Health Now”.

    No other issues. Campaign on that as a mandate. If we can only change one big thing at a time then we should only promise one big thing.

    • FuzzyDog@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      11 days ago

      Some of Tim Walz’s largest donors are health insurance and professionals. They have financial incentives to keep the status quo. With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans?

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        11 days ago

        Walz doesn’t have a seat anymore. And what do the Democrats have to lose by actually moving left?

        • FuzzyDog@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 days ago

          I’d say the reason the Democrats won’t move left is because the party elite have a lot of donors they’d piss off by actually supporting serious leftist economic policy.

          Maybe I’m wrong. Hell, I’d love to be wrong. But I’ve sort of lost hope that the democratic party is ever going to deliver.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            11 days ago

            Yeah I get that. But it would be the kind of move that shakes up losing all of the swing states, the popular vote, and both legislative bodies. Political parties want to get elected and “normal” campaigning isn’t doing it anymore. A few more losses like this and there won’t be a democratic party.

        • FuzzyDog@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 days ago

          Well tbf the reason I’m complaining is that the status quo sucks and isn’t going to get better, even if the Dems sweep next election.

    • witten@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      12 days ago

      Historically we can change zero big things at a time. But I agree with you. Our rate of change has got to change. (Mathematics/physics joke goes here.)

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        11 days ago

        The Democrats have the infrastructure. Screw the big donors. Run an actual grass roots campaign. It’s not like they can do any worse at this point.

  • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    12 days ago

    That’s nearly 2/3 of Americans, a pretty strong majority. Those other 38% of Americans can go fuck themselves, right along with the corporate oligarchs they worship.

  • squirrelwithnut@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    44
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    11 days ago

    Sounds like 62% of Americans should have voted for the candidate that might have actually made that possible.

    • iMastari@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      11 days ago

      Bernie Sanders tried but did not get enough votes when he ran for president because the government paying for your healthcare is apparently bad for some reason.

      • Skeezix@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 days ago

        Its bad for profits. And since the government is run by people with a vested interest in profits, it wont change anytime soon. All the oligarchs have to do is convince enough rubes that universal healthcare is bad, and it will never see the light of day.

      • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 days ago

        Its important to make incremental progress. Kamala was a standard dem like Joe. Still they are open to hearing good ideas; compared to Trump.

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 days ago

          Trump is open to hearing good ideas too. Problem is, “good” is highly subjective.

  • crystalmerchant@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    12 days ago

    Not “coverage”, “affordable coverage”. I don’t want coverage through whatever capitalist exploit insurance company. I want affordable healthcare without lifesucking middlemen

    • MisterD@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      11 days ago

      That’s a single payer health system. Government pays the health providers You pay the government through taxes.

    • Ellen_musk_ox@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      11 days ago

      The coverage the fire department provides is affordable. And my Library. And my streets. And the storm water system. And K-12.

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        11 days ago

        Yeah but only sick people use healthcare so fuck them. /s

        Capitalist healthcare is class eugenics. CMV.

  • ME5SENGER_24@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    73
    ·
    12 days ago

    How is it only 62%?! Who actually looks at their medical bill and thinks, “Yep, this is accurate and absolutely worth every penny”? I have health insurance, and I still avoid going to the doctor unless I’m practically dying because I simply can’t afford it.

    And yet, I’m stuck paying nearly $10k a year for insurance—just in case something catastrophic happens—only to still face massive copays, out-of-pocket costs, and coverage denials. It’s completely counterintuitive.

    The system is broken.

    Screw the insurance industry.
    Screw the state of medical care in the U.S.

    Healthcare shouldn’t be a privilege—it’s a human right. Normalize that.

    • fuzzyspudkiss@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      edit-2
      12 days ago

      Red state here - the biggest argument I hear all the time is that if we get public healthcare the care quality will go down and we will have to wait 8 hrs to get seen for a heart attack. They point to Canada’s system and say most Canadians wish they had our system. So the answer, as always, is brainwashing.

    • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      35
      ·
      12 days ago

      The other 38% are either young and healthy enough to have never have had to deal with the healthcare industry or are just so staunchly individualistic they’d rather die than let someone else get a ‘handout’. ‘Taxes are theft’, ‘why should MY money go to blah’, me me me. Lack of empathy and/or a very naïve understanding of what society is actually for.

    • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      12 days ago

      i say this as a huge supporter of single payer but also as a trans person.

      in an ideal world, a national health system is great but then you also look at places like the uk where wait times for gender affirming care are up to four years and both puberty blockers are on the verge of being banned by the left of centre party.

      • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        12 days ago

        The reasons for that, though, are largely because the NHS has been under attack by the right wing for more than a decade. It was a huge inflection point for Brexit, and there’s been a major effort to break it so they can point at how broken it is.

        Don’t use the NHS issues to judge how such a system would or should work for trans care. It’s been actively sabotaged.

        • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          12 days ago

          my point was that it’s susceptible to it in the first place… and the attacks on trans care come from both the tories and labour

          • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            11 days ago

            All social* systems are susceptible to bigotry, and fascistic capitalism most of all.

            Labour isn’t perfect by any stretch, but pretending both sides have been equally to blame is just as unfortunate in the UK as it is in the US, Germany, Australia, and Canada. One side may be slow to put your needs to the fore, but make no mistake, the other wants you dead.

  • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    12 days ago

    Universal healthcare won’t help if it isn’t decently funded. That is the complexity. Some existing Universal healthcare places are struggling because the gov wants to negotiate lower prices. So the kids that potentially would be in healthcare go elsewhere. That leads to long wait times and such. So we need both, Universal healthcare, and a way to be sure to fund it such that we attract good professionals

  • penquin@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    12 days ago

    Yeah, we are gonna be mere “poll numbers” forever and nothing will be done.

    • btaf45@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      12 days ago

      Yeah, we are gonna be mere “poll numbers” forever and nothing will be done.

      Before the ACA passed, each and every time I brought up the need to change the system in online forums, somebody would tell me it will never happen. In those days there was no way to get insurance if you had preexisting conditions without working for a corporation.

  • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    11 days ago

    Why though, many of them voted for Trump, next month antivax RFK Jr. will be health minister. Trump has claimed a healthcare plan will be ready “next week” for the past 8 years. People wanted Obamacare gone. So what do you want? Healthcare or no healthcare?

        • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 days ago

          I think that country needs a revolution, after which a completely new constitution needs to be written with a complete new governing system. Getting rid of corruption. Dividing the massive country into smaller countries, with rules and regulations on a smaller scale. Because every state is different. It’s going to cause a lot of death, misery, suffering, but sometimes you need to endure extra pain to get better. Like surgery, it’s painful but without it you will end up with more pain and suffering in the long run. But you need insurance for that so most Americans probably don’t know what I’m talking about.

  • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    12 days ago

    too bad it only matters what the 1% want. can’t wait to see what those 62% will do when their retirement money gets pillaged too. spoiler alert: nothing

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    11 days ago

    Until the USA can cap healthcare costs, shit ain’t gonna happen. Every single legal resident in the USA should have the same healthcare as the politicians.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    12 days ago

    Again, there’s that 30-40% Party Of No crowd that is likely the same starve the beast pro-Trump voters we’ve seen in polls time and again. The ones probably going to need those very same services, if they already aren’t using medicare/-aid.

    • Riccosuave@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      12 days ago

      That is why universal healthcare risk pools need to start at the state level. The goal needs to be to lock out the subsidization of those who are voting for predatory policies. This accomplishes a few important things.

      • It will systemically punish Republican voters in Republican led states.

      • Over time it will (in theory) massively shift the public consciousness in those areas around how badly they are getting fucked.

      • It removes the necessity of reliance on a federal change in order to begin the process of legislative reform.

      This is obviously not a perfect solution, but I don’t see this happening in any other way. There is roughly a (0%) chance we see universal healthcare implemented at the national level first.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        12 days ago

        There are very few states that can handle the cost of state-funded health care, and unfortunately they would be faced with negotiating care from for-profit enterprises that have no care other than maximizing profits.

        It needs to be a “from the ground up” service, which we had at one point - we used to have a lot of state, municipal and county hospitals, but the majority of them got shuttered and replaced with for-profit enterprises - where the state creates facilities owned/operated by the state and can control pricing with no expectation for a profit to be made. That’s how you get care for all at government prices, we can’t keep shoveling money at for-profit businesses.

        • Riccosuave@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          12 days ago

          This is an interesting idea, but I don’t see where that is ever going to be effective either given the massive logistical undertaking that would be required in order to deal with states managing non-profit medical facilities. The only option is to somehow circumvent the middle men.

          • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            12 days ago

            Circumventing the middle man is exactly why for-profit enterprises resist state care with everything they have. The government is a powerful negotiator that can undercut for-profit business because they don’t need to profit from the work being done.

            • Riccosuave@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              12 days ago

              Yes, but you could say the exact same thing about the creation of single payer state insurance pools could you not? They can force negotiations on medical providers at the state level, and force them to accept state backed insurance if they wish to conduct business in that state. That seems like a way simpler solution than needing to come up with massive amounts of logistical infrastructure that already exists.

              • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                12 days ago

                Not as effective as the government as a whole. Also singles that state put among others as you said, placing additional adversity between the state and existing or potential employers.

                Look, if it were simple, we could do it. Even if much of the difficulty is artificially created by businesses and other monied interests, it still exists and one state doesn’t exist in a vacuum where businesses wouldn’t have the option to leave. Other states would undermine the attempt for political or financial gain. It’s not simple.

                • Riccosuave@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  12 days ago

                  I totally agree that no solution is going to be simple. I think what I envisioned was an inter-state compact where it would make it essentially impossible for medical providers to pull away. If we just use the West Coast as an example, what if Washington, Oregon, and California were to create a public option risk pool that could then be joined by other blue states? That is really the idea that I think is the most sensible, and potentially feasible to implement over time.

        • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          12 days ago

          A lot of states are larger, both geographically and economically, than many European countries. What’s stopping those states from doing it?

          • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            12 days ago

            You’re not comparing apples to apples.

            Those EU countries have a hoard of social services available, from pre-school to free/relatively inexpensive higher education, to medical services, unions, pensions and elder care…a lot of services Americans have to pay for on top of any exchange of health care premium for state health care tax. I mean, there’s a huge difference between EU workers’ compensation, housing costs, and benefits work compared to US workers, how companies are taxed and pay into social services, and to make them comparable would require massive change. The US has faced “taxes are evil” propaganda for easily 40 plus years now, and getting the funding to create a care system from both citizens and corporations will require a miracle.

            • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              12 days ago

              If universal healthcare is cheaper than private insurance (and most say it is) why not simply charge the citizens of, for example, California 4/5th of what they’re currently paying? What am I missing here? If they did that in my state it would save me around $100/mo

      • Strykker@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        12 days ago

        This is basically how it works in Canada, but when the health care system gets worse during conservative control of the provinces people aren’t blaming the conservatives and province they are blaming the federal government and the liberal party.

        People have literally zero idea or care about what level controls things, they just want to blame “the other guy”

    • nifty@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      12 days ago

      38% probably on Medicare/Medicaid

      lol was gonna say the same based on this headline