Poll Shows Conservative Health Care Agenda Unpopular Even With Republicans

Until Donald Trump talked about his “concepts of a plan” for replacing the Affordable Care Act two weeks ago, Republicans running for office mostly avoided the subject of health care.

A new poll suggests why: The reforms they would likely embrace are incredibly unpopular, in most cases even with self-identified Republicans.

The poll, which the research firm Data for Progress released early Tuesday and shared with HuffPost prior to publication, asked respondents how they felt about eight legislative ideas that conservatives have touted in the recent past.

Each of the ideas were part of legislation that Republicans have promoted in the past few years or received support in documents such as Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led agenda that influential conservatives hope can serve as a blueprint for another Trump presidency.

The response to each idea that Data for Progress tested was negative. And in most cases, it was overwhelmingly negative.

At the top of the list was “allowing insurers to deny coverage or charge people more if they have pre-existing conditions.” Seventy-seven percent of Americans oppose the idea, according to the survey, while just 15% support it.

Republicans have mostly avoided talking about this idea since 2017, when they were proposing to allow such practices to return as part of their efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

But the most recent budget proposal from the Republican Study Committee, which represents conservative GOP lawmakers, includes a version of the idea. And last week, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance talked about allowing insurers to separate beneficiaries by their level of medical risk.

That is the way conservatives frequently describe plans to weaken or eliminate rules protecting people with pre-existing conditions, as multiple commentators and analysts have noted.

Another item Data for Progress tested was “stopping Medicare from having the ability to negotiate lower drug prices.” That notion was also highly unpopular, with 73% opposed and 19% supporting.

And that feels too relevant in this campaign.

The ability to negotiate drug prices in Medicare is something the federal government just acquired with the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and just began using this year. Republicans have said repeatedly they want to repeal that law, which Democrats passed and President Joe Biden signed.

And though Republicans have generally avoided specifying whether they mean to include the new drug negotiation power as part of that rollback, a few have indicated their interest, most recently last week in interviews with Axios. Both Project 2025 and the Republican Study Committee proposals also talk about rescinding or at least reducing the government’s new ability to drive down drug prices.

Perhaps the most noteworthy part of these findings is the extent to which they transcend partisanship and ideology. For both pre-existing condition protections and drug negotiation authority, opposition among Republican voters was nearly as high as it was for the population as a whole.

There were some health care issues in the survey on which the results were not so lopsided ― for example, on whether to impose “stricter work requirements for Medicaid recipients.” But even on that idea, the poll found 48% in opposition among the total population with just 39% in support.

For this poll, Data for Progress surveyed 1,283 voters and weighted the results to adjust for age, gender, race, geography and what respondents recalled about their voting histories. The questioning was done in the field on Sept. 12 and 13, and the results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Data for Progress is a left-leaning firm, but its results are broadly consistent with findings from polling organizations such as KFF, the nonpartisan research organization that has been the gold standard for health care polling.

One thing the Data for Progress survey did not test was whether opposition to the Republican health care agenda would actually translate into support for Democrats come November. But Danielle Deiseroth, executive director of Data for Progress, told HuffPost there’s good reason to think health care will help Democrats if they talk up the issue.

“These are some of the most directly impactful policies that the government can put forward,” Deiseroth said, adding that “what we also know is that Democrats are more trusted among voters to handle the issue of health care. So this is friendly territory for Democrats.”

As usual, the polling results don’t speak to the merits of the policy ideas tested or the arguments about them.

Conservatives argue that regulation of insurance and drug markets ultimately makes society worse off by distorting free markets, causing shortages and discouraging innovation. Liberals typically counter that free markets in health care don’t work and that the kinds of interventions Democrats have passed can promote access and quality.

Those arguments have no right or wrong, as they depend on judgment calls and priorities. The state of public opinion on health care is a very different story ― and a very clear one, as this latest poll demonstrates.