NOTEWORTHY passing legislation to bring down the price of prescription drugs should be a top prior-ity for President Trump and Congress. How-ever, less than half of the public (39%) say they are confident that President Trump and his Administration will be able to deliver on the promise that Americans will pay less for prescription drugs than they pay now. Pharmaceutical companies rank among the top organizations that the public—in-cluding majorities of Democrats, indepen-dents and Republicans—say have too much influence in Washington. Seven in 10 (72%) say pharmaceutical companies have too much influence, which is similar to other entities like large businesses and Wall Street, but much higher than the shares of the pub-lic who say the National Rifle Association, hospital groups or doctors groups have too much influence (52%, 36% and 30%, respec-tively). There is stronger agreement among partisans on the influence of pharmaceutical companies with majorities of both Demo-crats (65%) and Republicans (74%) saying pharmaceutical companies have too much influence in Washington. This Kaiser Health Tracking Poll found six in 10 (59%) favor a national health plan, or Medicare-for-all, in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan—including a majority of both Democrats and independents and about one-third of Republicans. Support for such a proposal increases among the overall public (75%) and among partisans (87% of Democrats, 74% of independents and 64% of Republicans) when framed as an option for anyone who wants it, but people who currently have other forms of coverage can keep the coverage they already have. It is unclear how support would fare if these proposals became part of the larger public debate as previous KFF polling has found the public’s attitudes can be quite malleable. Democrats are divided on what they want Democrats in Congress to focus on: improv-ing the Affordable Care Act (46%) or trying to pass a national health plan (480. But few voters, regardless of partisanship, say a can-didate’s position on a national health plan will be the most important factor in their vote during the 2018 midterm elections. Among all voters, voters living where there are competitive House, Senate or governor races, and Democratic voters, about one in 10 say a candidate’s position on a national health plan will be the single most impor-tant factor in their 2018 vote choice. An ad-ditional 69% of all voters, and battleground voters, say it will be an “important, but not the most important factor” as do 76% of Democratic voters. benefitspecialistmagazine.com | ABS 23
America's Benefit Specialist May 2018: Page 23
