Axios reports that a new AARP poll finds that health care is the top concern for women over 50. And, 95 percent of them plan to vote in 2020. What does that mean for the 2020 elections?
Women over 50 represent about 28 percent of registered voters. Of note, seven in ten of them say they are undecided among presidential candidates. So, candidates need to be focused on getting their support. For sure, women over 50 are looking for lower health care costs. It also appears they are looking for jobs which make it easier for them to be a caregiver. Four in ten of them said if they could get a job with a company that was sympathetic to caregivers, they would switch to that job.
Four in ten women over 50 report not being able to afford health care. Many skipped getting care or got less care than needed. Many others who got care ended up in medical debt. More than one in four (26 percent) women reported skipping care because they could not afford it.
Almost half of women over 50 (46 percent) give political leaders on both sides of the aisle failing grades for their inability to address high health care and prescription drug costs.
The poll also found that women living in rural communities and small towns reported health care to be an even more important concern than urban women. Overall, about four in 10 women (39 percent) said that health care was their top concern as compared to 47 percent of rural and small-town women voters.
For women over 50, affordable health care is more important than immigration, terrorism, national security, guns and climate change. Immigration is the top concern for men over 50.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- Private insurers are the biggest obstacle to guaranteed affordable health care
- Would a public option reduce your out-of-pocket health care costs?
- Programs that lower your costs if you have Medicare
- Social Security benefits will rise 1.6 percent in 2020
- To save money on your care, consider using a free health clinic
