‘A First-of-Its-Kind’ Poll About Medicare for All
A centrist think tank offered to conduct an exclusive poll for Zeteo to gauge Americans’ attitudes about Medicare for All. Here’s what we found.
When I first heard about the Searchlight Institute, I can’t say I loved the premise. Did Washington really need one more centrist think tank that’s skeptical about progressive policy ideas?
After I snarkily criticized one of their polls on Twitter, their team reached out to me, offering Zeteo an opportunity to help them write a lengthy poll exclusively about Medicare for All. Of course I said yes: I strongly believe in the project of universal healthcare, something that is standard virtually everywhere else in the world.
Searchlight may favor more limited ways to expand healthcare access, but no other DC think tank had ever offered me a chance to partner on a poll before about Medicare for All – and definitely not for free. According to Searchlight, we collaborated on “a first-of-its-kind honest assessment of voter attitudes on government-run health insurance.”
Our joint survey, conducted by Tavern Research, found single-payer proposals received either majority or plurality support, depending on how they were worded. The poll found strong support for the idea of having the government cover a variety of healthcare costs. It also found widespread skepticism about the government’s ability to run a national healthcare program, even though many Americans already get health insurance through the government.
In terms of the single-payer questions presented, the version that polled best was when people were asked, simply, if they support automatically enrolling every American in a comprehensive government-administered health insurance plan, something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get.