The Hill reports on a recent poll revealing that most voters in four battleground states would not support a presidential candidate favoring Trump’s policies. Voters want the federal government to protect people with pre-existing conditions, people with Medicare, and people needing prescription drugs. President Trump’s health care policies could jeopardize his re-election.
President Trump’s proposed solutions to high health care costs do nothing to bring down health care prices; rather, they put people’s lives and finances at risk if they need complex or costly care. The Trump administration is working to destroy the Affordable Care Act, including its pre-existing condition protections as well as to slash Medicare spending. Trump recognizes the need to lower prescription drug costs, but he has not succeeded at doing anything on that front.
In fact as Alex Azar, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, explains in a New York Post op-ed, President Trump is focused on allowing insurance companies to sell low-cost insurance policies that do not provide adequate coverage. For example, he supports the sale of insurance that does not cover prescription drugs. These policies may have lower premiums, but they also come with potentially far higher health care costs.
Trump is also promoting health savings accounts. These accounts do nothing to lower health care costs. They simply force people to choose between spending a lot of money on health care or foregoing care.
And, Trump is promoting greater use of physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners. Physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners can be valuable health care providers. But, they are not oncologists or surgeons, and they cannot be substituted for them as a way of bringing down health care costs.
Voters in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin want our health care system to work for everyone, including people who need costly care, according to a poll conducted by Protect Our Care. Other polls suggest the rest of the country is right there with them.
The poll reveals that more than seven in ten people (72 percent) would not support a candidate who called for doing away with pre-existing condition protections. Nearly eight in ten people (77 percent) would not support a candidate who called for ending prescription drug coverage. And, the vast majority of people want Medicare to be able to negotiate drug prices.
Here’s more from Just Care:
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