Republicans tend to like the U.S. health care system more than Democrats do, but Americans both parties do agree on some issues related to health care.
EHealth, a health insurance broker that sells commercial coverage and Medicare plans through the web, has posted data supporting those conclusions in a summary of results from a web-based survey of about 1,000 U.S. adults conducted in February.
About 79% of the Democrats surveyed gave the U.S. health care system a grade of C or lower. Only 60% of the Republicans surveyed gave the health care system such a low grade.
Roughly 79% of the Republicans and just 42% of the Democrats agreed that “there’s too much government regulation in health care today.”
Partisan differences also showed up in answers to a question about how likely President Donald Trump is to make cutting health care costs a priority: 75% of the Republicans and just 17% of the Democrats said they were very or somewhat confident that Trump would make cutting health care costs a priority.
But 71% of the Republicans and 67% of the Democrats said they’d support a ban on pharmaceutical companies advertising directly to consumers.
Most of the survey participants in both parties opposed the idea of letting health insurers turn down applicants based on their medical history; only 9% of the participants said that insurers should be able to reject applicants due to the applicants having pre-existing health problems.
Earlier surveys: In November, shortly after the general elections, Gallup found that 62% of the Americans it surveyed said it’s the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that all Americans have health care coverage, with 90% of Democrats, 65% of independents and 32% of Republicans supporting that position.
In May, KFF reported that 39% of independents said they trusted former President Joseph Biden more than Trump to address high health care costs and 26% trusted Trump more.
