Memo: Medicare for All
By
Sean McElwee, Executive Director, Data for Progress.
Throughout the primary, pundits and commentators have said that Medicare for All would be an albatross for Democrats in 2020. However, the polling evidence suggests a far more nuanced picture. Over the last several months, Data for Progress has been working to test Medicare for All in a wide range of electoral environments, using a range of different vendors and our analysis of the evidence suggests that Medicare for All will remain on net positive even after facing rightwing push-back.
Executive Summary
In a randomized trial, the Democrat running on Medicare for All performed between 4 and 10 points better than a Democrat running on improving the ACA. In all cases, the Medicare for All Democrat easily defeated Trump.
Even after a partisan frame, it is unlikely that Medicare for All will see net opposition from voters, consistent with the fact that even after several months of negative ads and critical media coverage, the policy still has net positive support.
Democrats had strong net-positive trust on both the “expanding healthcare” (50 percent to 37 percent) and on Medicare for All (49 percent to 35 percent).
