Donald Trump’s healthcare policy has become another focus of discontent among Americans who participated in this Tuesday’s midterm elections. According to the first data from AP Voter Poll, the electoral survey of Associated Press, the majority of voters believes that the president’s decisions have harmed the health and well-being of the population, while approximately half think they have worsened both access to healthcare assistance and its cost.
The rejection contrasts with the weight that voters give to healthcare among the country’s main concerns. Only one in ten voters identifies it as the most important problem, although the answers about specific policies of the Trump Administration reflect a much more widespread sense of unease.
Only two in ten voters see improvements in health and well-being
The AP survey, whose results have been released during election night, shows that approximately two in ten Americans who have voted believe that Trump’s policies have improved the health and well-being of the population. A similar proportion believes that they have had no appreciable consequences.
The majority, however, expresses a negative assessment of their effects. Discontent also appears when asked specifically about two aspects that directly affect households: the possibility of receiving healthcare assistance and the money needed to access it.
In both cases, around half of voters believe that the president’s policies have worsened the situation, according to data collected by Associated Press.
Six in ten voters call for greater federal intervention
Beyond the assessment of presidential management, the survey reveals a demand for greater involvement by federal institutions in healthcare coverage. Approximately six in ten voters want the U.S. government to play a more important role in facilitating access to medical care.
The figure introduces a political dimension to the healthcare debate, an area in which responsibilities and funding are divided among federal authorities, states, and the various public and private coverage systems.
The opinion of voters about the role of the Government does not necessarily equate to support for a specific health reform, but it reflects that a majority of those surveyed demands greater federal involvement.
Democrats have turned healthcare into one of their campaign arguments
Healthcare has taken a prominent place in the campaigns of numerous Democratic candidates, who have tried to link the electoral debate with access to medical services and the cost that American families must bear.
One example is Abdul El-Sayed, Democratic candidate for the Senate from Michigan, who has turned the defense of universal healthcare coverage into one of the central pillars of his candidacy.
The findings of the AP Voter Poll make it possible to identify a concern that goes beyond voters who consider healthcare their main priority. Although only a minority points to it as the most important issue in the elections, a considerable proportion questions the consequences of Trump’s healthcare policies.
The data correspond to responses collected in the Associated Press election survey and describe voters’ perceptions, not an independent measurement of the effective trend in costs or of healthcare coverage. Nor do they, by themselves, make it possible to determine how that dissatisfaction will translate into the allocation of seats in Congress.