After years of
Tea Party demands for smaller government, Republicans are now pushing up against a growing consensus that the government should guarantee health insurance. A
Pew survey in January found that 60 percent of Americans believe the federal government should be responsible for ensuring that all Americans have health coverage. That was up from 51 percent last year, and the highest in nearly a decade.
The belief held even among many Republicans: 52 percent of those making below $30,000 a year said the federal government has a responsibility to ensure health coverage, a huge jump from 31 percent last year. And 34 percent of Republicans who make between $30,000 and about $75,000 endorsed that view, up from 14 percent last year.
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There has been an increase in the percentage of Republicans and Democrats saying that Medicaid is important for them and their families; between February and July the percentage of Republicans saying so had increased 10 points, to 53 percent.
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Mr. Greenberg said the growing belief that the government should make sure people have health coverage was less an outbreak of compassion than a matter of affordability. In focus groups he conducted, Trump voters said they wanted the president and Congress to lower their health insurance premiums; they did not want to lose the Affordable Care Act’s protections against insurers charging more to people with pre-existing conditions, or denying coverage of basic health benefits.