Seventy Percent of Americans Support 'Medicare for All' in New Poll

By Megan Keller, The Hill

25 August 18

vast majority — 70 percent — of Americans in a new poll supports "Medicare for all," also known as a single-payer health-care system.

The Reuters–Ipsos survey found 85 percent of Democrats said they support the policy along with 52 percent of Republicans.

Medicare for all has been in the headlines after a study by the libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center at George Mason University found it would lead to $32.6 trillion increase in federal spending over a 10-year period.

The study’s author, Charles Blahous, wrote in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month that even doubling taxes would not cover the bill for a single-payer health-care system.

The policy’s proponents, however, point to a note in the study showing that health-care costs would also decrease by $2 trillion by 2031 if it became law.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has introduced a Medicare for all bill, has said that the Mercatus study is “grossly misleading and biased.”

The new Reuters poll also showed that a majority of Americans supports free college tuition. Forty-one percent of Republicans said they supported the policy, pollsters found, compared with 79 percent of Democrats.

The move to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was also opposed by a majority of respondents. Seventy percent of Republicans said they opposed abolishing the 15-year-old agency, while Democrats said they were evenly split on the issue, with roughly 44 percent in favor of abolishing it and 44 percent saying it should remain.

The Reuters poll consulted American adults throughout June and July this year. Reuters asked 2,989 respondents about Medicare for all, 5,339 about free college tuition, and 7,737 about abolishing ICE. The results have margins of error of 2 percentage points for the Medicare for all and free college tuition questions. The margin of error for the question about abolishing ICE is 1 percentage point.