By Noam N. Levey, KFF Well being Information
Like many Individuals who voted for Donald Trump, Jason Rouse hopes the president’s return will imply decrease costs for gasoline, groceries and different necessities.
However Rouse is seeking to the federal authorities for aid from one explicit ache level: excessive well being care prices. “The prices are just ridiculous,” mentioned Rouse, 53, a retired Michigan firefighter and paramedic who has voted for Trump thrice. “I’d like to see a lower cap on what I have to pay out-of-pocket.”
Authorities regulation of well being care costs was once heresy for many Republicans. GOP leaders fiercely opposed the 2010 Reasonably priced Care Act, which included authorities limits on sufferers’ prices. Extra lately, the social gathering fought laws signed by former President Joe Biden to cap prescription drug costs.
However as Trump begins his second time period, most of the voters who despatched him again to the White Home welcome extra sturdy authorities motion to rein in a well being care system many Individuals understand as uncontrolled, polls present.
“That idea that government should just keep its hands off, even when things are tough for people, has kind of lost its sheen,” mentioned Andrew Seligsohn, president of Public Agenda, a nonprofit that has studied public attitudes about authorities and well being care.
“We’re wandering around the country with a set of old, outdated frameworks about what ordinary Democrats and ordinary Republicans like,” he mentioned.
Republican voters strongly again federal limits on the costs charged by drug firms and hospitals, caps on sufferers’ medical payments, and restrictions on how well being care suppliers can pursue folks over medical debt.
Even Medicaid, the state-federal insurance coverage program that Republican congressional leaders are eyeing to dramatically reduce, is considered favorably by many GOP voters, like Ashley Williamson.
Williamson, 37, a mom of 5 in japanese Tennessee who voted for Trump, mentioned Medicaid offered crucial help when her mother-in-law wanted nursing residence care. “We could not take care of her,” Williamson mentioned. “It stepped in. It made sure she was taken care of.”
Williamson, whose circle of relatives will get protection by her husband’s employer, mentioned she could be very involved by giant cuts in Medicaid funding that would jeopardize protection for needy Individuals.
For years, Republican concepts about well being care mirrored a broad skepticism about authorities and fears that authorities would threaten sufferers’ entry to physicians or lifesaving medicines.
“The discussions 10 to 15 years ago were all around choice,” mentioned Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster who has labored for quite a few GOP politicians, together with former Maryland governor Larry Hogan. “Free market, not having the government limit or take over your health care.”
Matthews and fellow pollster Mike Perry lately convened and paid for a number of focus teams with Trump voters, together with Rouse and Williamson, which KFF Well being Information noticed.
Skepticism about authorities lingers amongst rank-and-file Republicans. And concepts equivalent to shifting all Individuals right into a single authorities well being plan, akin to “Medicare for All,” are nonetheless nonstarters for a lot of GOP voters.
However as tens of thousands and thousands of Individuals are pushed into debt by medical payments they don’t perceive or can’t afford, many are reassessing their inclination to look to free markets slightly than the federal government, mentioned Bob Ward, whose agency, Fabrizio Ward, polled for Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign.
“I think most people look at this and say the market is broken, and that’s why they’re willing for someone, anyone, to step in,” he mentioned. “The deck is stacked against folks.”
In a latest nationwide survey, Fabrizio Ward and Hart Analysis, which for many years has polled for Democratic candidates, discovered that Trump voters have been extra prone to blame well being insurers, drug firms, and hospital programs than the federal government for top well being care prices.
Sarah Bognaski, 31, an administrative assistant in upstate New York, is among the many many Trump voters who say they resent profiteering by the well being care trade. “I don’t think there is any reason a lot of the costs should be as high as they are,” Bognaski mentioned. “I think it’s just out of pure greed.”
Excessive well being care prices have had a direct affect on Bognaski, who was identified 4 years in the past with Kind 1 diabetes, a situation that makes her depending on insulin. She mentioned she’s able to have the federal government step in and cap what sufferers pay for prescribed drugs. “I’d like to see more regulation,” she mentioned.
Charles Milliken, a retired auto mechanic in West Virginia, who mentioned he backed Trump as a result of the nation “needs a businessman, not a politician,” expects the brand new president to go even additional.
“I think he’s going to put a cap on what insurance companies can charge, what doctors can charge, what hospitals can charge,” mentioned Milliken, 51, who lately had a coronary heart assault that left him with greater than $6,000 in medical debt.
Three-quarters of Trump voters again authorities limits on what hospitals can cost, Ward’s polling discovered.
And about half of Trump voters in a latest KFF ballot mentioned the brand new administration ought to prioritize increasing the variety of medicine whose worth is about by negotiation between the federal Medicare program and drug firms, a program began underneath the Biden administration.
Perry, who’s convened dozens of focus teams with voters about well being care in recent times, mentioned the assist for presidency worth caps is all of the extra exceptional since regulating medical costs isn’t on the prime of most politicians’ agenda. “It seems to be like a groundswell,” he mentioned. “They’ve come to this decision on their own, rather than any policymakers leading them there, that something needs to be done.”
Different types of authorities regulation, equivalent to limits on medical debt collections, are much more common.
About 8 in 10 Republicans backed a $2,300 cap on how a lot sufferers could possibly be required to pay yearly for medical debt, in response to a 2023 survey by Perry’s polling agency, PerryUndem. And 9 in 10 favored a cap on rates of interest charged on medical debt.
“These are what I would consider no-brainers, from a political perspective,” Ward mentioned.
However GOP political leaders in Washington have traditionally proven little curiosity in authorities limits on what sufferers pay for medical care. And as Trump and his allies in Congress start shaping their well being care agenda, many Republican leaders have expressed extra curiosity in reducing authorities than in increasing its protections.
“There is oftentimes a massive disconnect,” Ward mentioned, “between what happens in the caucuses on Capitol Hill and what’s happening at family tables across America.”
©2025 KFF Well being Information. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company, LLC.
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