Tom Zawierucha, 58, a constructing providers employee in New Jersey, needs candidates would speak extra about defending older People from huge medical payments.
Teresa Morton, 43, a freight dispatcher in Memphis, Tennessee, with two youngsters, needs to listen to extra about how elected officers would assist working People saddled with unaffordable deductibles.
Yessica Grey, 28, a buyer assist consultant in Wisconsin, craves aid from excessive drug costs and medical payments which have pushed her and her husband deep into debt. “How much are we going to pay?” she mentioned. “It’s just something that’s always on my mind.”
Well being care hasn’t figured prominently on this more and more acrimonious presidential marketing campaign. And the economic system has usually topped the record of voters’ issues.
However People stay intensely apprehensive about paying for medical care, nationwide surveys present.
Two in 3 U.S. adults in a current nationwide ballot by West Well being and Gallup mentioned they’re involved a serious well being occasion would land them in debt. An identical share mentioned well being care isn’t getting sufficient consideration within the marketing campaign.
To higher perceive voters’ well being care issues because the 2024 marketing campaign nears an finish, KFF Well being Information labored with analysis agency PerryUndem to convene a pair of focus teams final week with 16 folks from throughout the nation. PerryUndem is a nonpartisan agency based mostly in Washington, D.C., that research public views on well being care and different points.
The main focus group members represented a broad swath of the voters, with some favoring Republican candidates, and others Democrats. However almost all shared a standard criticism: Neither presidential candidate has talked sufficient about how they’d assist folks struggling to pay for medical care.
“You don’t really hear anything much about health care costs,” mentioned Bob Groegler, 46, who works in residential financing in jap Pennsylvania. Groegler mentioned he’s apprehensive he could by no means be capable of retire as a result of he received’t manage to pay for to pay his medical payments.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, hasn’t provided an in depth well being care agenda, although he criticizes present legal guidelines and mentioned he has “concepts of a plan” to enhance the 2010 Inexpensive Care Act, typically known as Obamacare.
Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, has laid out extra detailed well being care proposals, together with constructing on laws signed by President Joe Biden to decrease sufferers’ payments.
In 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Discount Act, which limits how a lot Medicare enrollees should pay out-of-pocket for pharmaceuticals, together with a $35 month-to-month cap on insulin. The laws additionally supplies extra federal support to assist People purchase medical health insurance via the Inexpensive Care Act, although this support will expire except Congress and the president renew it subsequent 12 months.
Harris has mentioned she is going to broaden the help and push for new help to Medicare enrollees who want residence care. She additionally has pledged to proceed federal efforts to relieve medical debt, a nationwide drawback that burdens about 100 million folks.
However a lot of the focus group members mentioned they knew little about these proposals, complaining that hot-button points like abortion have dominated the marketing campaign.
Many additionally expressed deep skepticism that both Harris or Trump would do a lot to lighten the burden of medical payments.
“I believe they’re out of touch with our reality,” mentioned Renata Bobakova, 46, a instructor and mom outdoors Cleveland. “We never know when we’ll get sick. We never know when we’ll fall down or sprain an ankle. And prices really can be astronomical. … I’m constantly worried about that.”
Bobakova, who’s from Slovakia, mentioned she went again to Europe to present delivery to her daughter 10 years in the past to keep away from crippling medical debt she knew she’d incur on this nation. Mother and father with personal well being protection face on common greater than $3,000 in medical payments associated to a being pregnant and childbirth that aren’t coated by insurance coverage.
Different focus group members mentioned they or folks they knew had left the nation to get cheaper pharmaceuticals. The U.S. has the very best medical costs on the planet, analysis reveals.
A number of focus group members, akin to Kevin Gaudette, 64, a retired semiconductor engineer in North Carolina, blamed giant hospitals, drug corporations, and insurers for blocking efforts to decrease sufferers’ prices to guard their income. “I think everybody has their finger in the pie,” Gaudette mentioned.
Martha Chapman, 64, who can also be retired and lives in Philadelphia, pointed to what she known as “corporate greed.” “I just don’t think it’s going to change,” she mentioned.
Within the closing days of the marketing campaign, that cynicism represents a selected drawback for Harris, mentioned PerryUndem co-founder Michael Perry, who led the 2 focus teams.
Harris has tried to tell apart herself because the candidate who’s extra critical about coverage and extra sympathetic to voters’ financial struggles, Perry mentioned. And in current weeks, she’s begun airing new advertisements highlighting well being care points.
However even focus group members who mentioned they lean Democratic appeared responsible each candidates for not addressing People’ well being care issues. “They’re not feeling listened to,” Perry mentioned.
Most of the members nonetheless continued to precise hope that a difficulty as necessary as well being care would sometime get the eye of elected officers, no matter political celebration.
“We’re all human beings here. We’re all people just trying to make it,” mentioned Zawierucha, the constructing providers employee in New Jersey. “If we get sick or have to go in and get something done, we should have that peace of mind that we can go in there and not have to worry about paying it off for the next 20 years.”
“Just give us some peace of mind,” he mentioned.
