According to a recent GenForward poll, younger Americans want the latest in healthcare reform to look like Obamacare. With the exception of one. The majority of people want the requirement to purchase health insurance instead of paying a fine removed.
According to the GenForward poll, the majority of respondents aged 18 to 30 believe the federal government should be tasked with ensuring that all Americans have health insurance, and the majority of young Americans will be most dissatisfied with a new law that simply provides “access” to coverage.
According to the poll, 63 percent of young Americans are satisfied with Obamacare overall.
Not surprisingly, the single most popular provision of the ACA is one that allows younger adults to remain on their parents’ insurance until the age of 26. This provision is supported by roughly 75% of the 18-30 year olds polled.
While two-thirds of young people agree that the federal or state government should make health care coverage available to all Americans, they also appear to recognize that the costs of such coverage will rise.
The findings appear to cross all racial lines. According to the survey, only one-quarter of young people want “Obamacare” repealed, while 16% of young adults want it repealed and replaced. Only 10% of those polled want the ACA repealed without a replacement. The survey’s main finding is that young people are significantly more likely than older people to believe the government should provide health care. Only 52 percent of older Americans polled after the most recent GOP health-care proposal failed believe it is the federal government’s responsibility to provide universal coverage.
According to one section of the GenForward findings, just over 70% of younger Americans support the ACA’s scheduled Medicaid expansion. Another 66% of younger adults believe that people should not be denied healthcare coverage because of their medical history. Some 65 percent believe insurance plans should cover the entire cost of birth control, and slightly more than 63 percent believe employers should be fined for not providing insurance to their employees.
In terms of how all of this should be paid for, slightly more than half of respondents, 53 percent, say they would pay for benefit increases through higher payroll taxes levied on high-income Americans.
One-quarter of those polled said they have insurance through their parents, and only 10% have purchased their own insurance through an ACA exchange.
The poll polled just over 1,800 adults aged 18-30, and GenForward claims a sampling error of plus or minus 4% for all respondents.