This article was originally published in Common Dreams under Creative Commons 3.0 license. Read the original article. Contact: editor@commondreams.org

By Brett Wilkins

Two-thirds of Americans now support a national health insurance program commonly known as Medicare for All, according to a new poll released Tuesday by KFF, marking the highest level of support recorded since the public health policy group began tracking the proposal a decade ago.

The latest KFF Health Tracking Poll, conducted between September 16-21, found that 66% of US adults favor Medicare for All, up substantially from the 53% who supported the idea when KFF last asked the question in October 2020. Just 34% now oppose it.

KFF’s findings come as healthcare affordability has emerged as a major concern heading into November’s midterm elections. Health costs and gasoline prices are tied as Americans’ top economic worries, while voters now trust Democrats over Republicans by a 20-point margin to handle healthcare costs, according to the poll.

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The poll results also underscore growing public frustration with the nation’s costly and fragmented healthcare system, with progressives increasingly arguing that voters want more than incremental reforms.

“People are sick of a broken healthcare system driven by the greed of the insurance industry and Big Pharma,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who twice ran for president as a Democrat on a Medicare for All platform—said Tuesday on social media. “The time to pass Medicare for All is NOW.”

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said: “Two-thirds of Americans support Medicare for All. Americans are done with a healthcare system that puts profits before people.”

“Medicare for All can save 114,000 lives and $1 trillion a year,” Omar noted, referring to a recently published study out of Yale University and adding, “Turns out, progressive policies can be good politics AND good policy.”

Audrey Kearney, a senior survey analyst at KFF, told Reuters that “all year, KFF polls have shown that the public is frustrated with the high cost of healthcare, and that may be leading to a desire for change.”

As The Guardian reported Sunday, 1,500 unionized nurses gathered in San Francisco last week to rally for Medicare for All, a policy their unions have championed for many years.

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Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, one of the proposal’s most prominent 2026 advocates, asked the nurses: “Medicare for who?”

“All!” they shouted back.

El-Sayed then described Medicare for All as addressing “the very simple idea that in the richest, most powerful country in the world you should not have to suffer for your healthcare.”

The California Nurses Association’s Michelle Gutierrez Vo, meanwhile, pointed to the costs and failures of the existing system.

“There’s too many unnecessary illnesses and unnecessary costs,” she said. “What are we doing?”

[AR]

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