A new Quinnipiac poll shows that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has lost half of her support nationally in a single month, registering currently at just 14% support when she had been at 28% as recently as Oct. 28.
Warren took third place in the poll behind former Vice President Joe Biden at 24% and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 16%. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) trailed Warren by one point at 13% support.
The poll was taken just after Buttigieg aggressively went after Warren in a Democrat presidential debate over her “Medicare for All” plan, asking the senator precisely how she planned to cover the massive cost of a program he said would not “unify the country.”
Warren’s plan, it has since been revealed, would require $20.5 trillion in new government spending.
Unpopular plan
The popularity of the Medicare for All concept has dropped precipitously since the public has gained more information about what it truly entails, namely, higher taxes for everyone — not just the rich — and the elimination of the private, employment-based health insurance millions of Americans currently receive.
“Medicare for All has grown increasingly unpopular among all American voters, as 36 percent say it is a good idea and 52 percent say it is a bad idea. In a March 26, 2019 poll, 43 percent said good idea, while 45 percent said bad idea. The highest support came in an August 3, 2017 poll when voters said it was a good idea 51 – 38 percent,” read the poll release detail sheet from Quinnipiac.
A study from the Urban Institute and the Commonwealth Fund showed that Medicare for All would increase overall health care spending by 20% while paying doctors and hospitals lower rates for care. While taxpayers would not need to pay healthcare premiums, they would pay higher taxes and may have limited access to care if resources are strained by any number of likely market conditions.
Universal health care programs in the UK and elsewhere have been plagued by doctor shortages and long wait times for routine procedures, a prospect that makes a plan such as Warren’s far less desirable in the eyes of countless Americans.
It just won’t work
Providing health care for everyone in the U.S. sounds great in theory, but similar attempts have not been shown to be successful anywhere they have been made, and in a nation the size of the U.S., the challenges are even more staggering. Democrats have tried to win votes by giving away “free stuff” like health care and college tuition, but Americans are smart enough to realize that they, the taxpayers, are going to end up footing the bill for these things in the end.
A new poll by the Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports showed that more than two-thirds of Americans favor free market capitalism and only 12% said they thought socialism was a better system.
Even a majority of Democrats surveyed agreed that capitalism was better than socialism, with 53% of Democrats coming to that conclusion.
Americans’ natural skepticism tells them that “free” healthcare will be nothing but a drag on what is currently a booming economy and will end up costing them far more than they are ever likely to save.
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