Medicare For All Looks Good In New Poll, But There's A Big Asterisk

Huffington Post:

Americans are pretty keen on the idea of creating a new government-run insurance program, or at least expanding an existing one, in order to make sure everybody can finally get affordable health care.

But Americans are more enthusiastic about proposals to make enrollment in government-run insurance voluntary rather than mandatory. And once Americans hear some of the common attacks that conservatives deploy against government-run insurance schemes, they get more skittish about the idea.

Those are some of the key findings in a new poll from the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The results say a lot about why so many Democrats are talking about ideas like “Medicare for all” these days ― and why, to succeed, those Democrats still have a lot of work to do.

For the first time in roughly a decade, Democrats rather than Republicans are the ones dreaming and talking about passing major new health care legislation. That’s because Democrats for most of the last 10 years had their hands full trying to stop Republicans from undermining or repealing the Affordable Care Act.