Like many Americans who voted for Donald Trump, Jason Rouse hopes the president’s return will imply decrease costs for fuel, groceries, and different necessities.
But Rouse is trying to the federal authorities for aid from one explicit ache level: excessive well being care prices. “The prices are just ridiculous,” stated Rouse, 53, a retired Michigan firefighter and paramedic who has voted for Trump 3 times. “I’d like to see a lower cap on what I have to pay out-of-pocket.”
Government regulation of well being care costs was heresy for many Republicans. GOP leaders fiercely opposed the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which included authorities limits on sufferers’ prices. More not too long ago, the social gathering fought laws signed by former President Joe Biden to cap prescription drug costs.
But as Trump begins his second time period, lots of the voters who despatched him again to the White House welcome extra strong authorities motion to rein in a well being care system many Americans understand as uncontrolled, polls present.
“That idea that government should just keep its hands off, even when things are tough for people, has kind of lost its sheen,” stated Andrew Seligsohn, president of Public Agenda, a nonprofit that has studied public attitudes about authorities and well being care.
“We’re wandering around the country with a set of old, outdated frameworks about what ordinary Democrats and ordinary Republicans like,” he stated.
Republican voters strongly again federal limits on the costs charged by drug firms and hospitals, caps on sufferers’ medical payments, and restrictions on how well being care suppliers can pursue individuals over medical debt.
Even Medicaid, the state-federal insurance coverage program that Republican congressional leaders are eyeing to dramatically lower, is viewed favorably by many GOP voters, like Ashley Williamson.
Williamson, 37, a mom of 5 in jap Tennessee who voted for Trump, stated Medicaid supplied crucial help when her mother-in-law wanted nursing residence care. “We could not take care of her,” Williamson stated. “It stepped in. It made sure she was taken care of.”
Williamson, whose circle of relatives will get protection by way of her husband’s employer, stated she can be very involved by giant cuts in Medicaid funding that might jeopardize protection for needy Americans.
For years, Republican concepts about well being care mirrored a broad skepticism about authorities and fears that authorities would threaten sufferers’ entry to physicians or lifesaving medicines.
“The discussions 10 to 15 years ago were all around choice,” stated Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster who has labored for quite a few GOP politicians, together with former Maryland governor Larry Hogan. “Free market, not having the government limit or take over your health care.”
Matthews and fellow pollster Mike Perry not too long ago convened and paid for a number of focus teams with Trump voters, together with Rouse and Williamson, which KFF Health News noticed.
Skepticism about authorities lingers amongst rank-and-file Republicans. And concepts akin to shifting all Americans right into a single authorities well being plan, akin to “Medicare for All,” are nonetheless nonstarters for a lot of GOP voters.
But as tens of tens of millions of Americans are driven into debt by medical payments they don’t perceive or can’t afford, many are reassessing their inclination to look to free markets moderately than the federal government, stated Bob Ward, whose agency, Fabrizio Ward, polled for Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign.
“I think most people look at this and say the market is broken, and that’s why they’re willing for someone, anyone, to step in,” he stated. “The deck is stacked against folks.”
In a recent national survey, Fabrizio Ward and Hart Research, which for many years has polled for Democratic candidates, discovered that Trump voters had been extra more likely to blame well being insurers, drug firms, and hospital techniques than the federal government for prime well being care prices.
Sarah Bognaski, 31, an administrative assistant in upstate New York, is among the many many Trump voters who say they resent profiteering by the well being care business. “I don’t think there is any reason a lot of the costs should be as high as they are,” Bognaski stated. “I think it’s just out of pure greed.”
High well being care prices have had a direct affect on Bognaski, who was recognized 4 years in the past with Type 1 diabetes, a situation that makes her depending on insulin. She stated she’s able to have the federal government step in and cap what sufferers pay for prescription drugs. “I’d like to see more regulation,” she stated.
Charles Milliken, a retired auto mechanic in West Virginia, who stated he backed Trump as a result of the nation “needs a businessman, not a politician,” expects the brand new president to go even additional.
“I think he’s going to put a cap on what insurance companies can charge, what doctors can charge, what hospitals can charge,” stated Milliken, 51, who not too long ago had a coronary heart assault that left him with greater than $6,000 in medical debt.
Three-quarters of Trump voters again authorities limits on what hospitals can cost, Ward’s polling discovered.
And about half of Trump voters in a recent KFF poll stated the brand new administration ought to prioritize increasing the variety of medication whose value is ready by way of negotiation between the federal Medicare program and drug firms, a program began beneath the Biden administration.
Perry, who’s convened dozens of focus teams with voters about well being care lately, stated the assist for presidency value caps is all of the extra outstanding since regulating medical costs isn’t on the high of most politicians’ agenda. “It seems to be like a groundswell,” he stated. “They’ve come to this decision on their own, rather than any policymakers leading them there, that something needs to be done.”
Other types of authorities regulation, akin to limits on medical debt collections, are much more in style.
About 8 in 10 Republicans backed a $2,300 cap on how a lot sufferers might be required to pay yearly for medical debt, in line with a 2023 survey by Perry’s polling agency, PerryUndem. And 9 in 10 favored a cap on rates of interest charged on medical debt.
“These are what I would consider no-brainers, from a political perspective,” Ward stated.
But GOP political leaders in Washington have traditionally proven little curiosity in authorities limits on what sufferers pay for medical care. And as Trump and his allies in Congress start shaping their well being care agenda, many Republican leaders have expressed extra curiosity in chopping authorities than in increasing its protections.
“There is oftentimes a massive disconnect,” Ward stated, “between what happens in the caucuses on Capitol Hill and what’s happening at family tables across America.”
We’d like to talk with present and former personnel from the Department of Health and Human Services or its element businesses who consider the general public ought to perceive the affect of what’s occurring inside the federal well being forms. Please message KFF Health News on Signal at (415) 519-8778 or get in touch here.
Noam N. Levey:
nlevey@kff.org,
@NoamLevey
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