Utahns aren’t sure whether they think Republicans or Democrats would be better at handling health care legislation.
A UtahPolicy.com survey from Dan Jones & Associates finds 35% of Utahns trust Republican leaders more to handle health care. 30% say Democrats would do a better job, while 16% think another party would be most trustworthy when it comes to health care. 19% say they don’t know.
The poll is significant now that Congressional Republicans are taking yet another whack at an Obamacare repeal bill. The House passed their version in May, but the Senate declared that bill dead on arrival, opting to pursue their own version of the legislation. President Trump called the House version “mean” after previously celebrating its passing.
President Donald Trump had promised that the Congress would repeal Obamacare on “day 1” of his presidency. It’s been nearly six months since he took office and Congressional Republicans are still fighting over how to proceed.
The Senate unveiled their latest proposal on Thursday. The revised plan repeals the individual mandate and eventually gets rid of subsidies for insurance premiums. The bill also makes significant changes to Medicaid, curtailing the program’s growth rate to cut spending on the entitlement program. The bill also includes increased funding to fight the opioid epidemic.
Sen. Orrin Hatch has already expressed his support for the new bill while Sen. Mike Lee is noncommittal. Sen. Lee has pushed for an amendment to allow health insurers to sell bare-bones plans that do not meet certain requirements. That language was not included in the latest version, but a “tweaked” version was.
As you might imagine, the question of who could better handle health care breaks sharply along partisan lines, but Democrats are surer they want their party leaders entrusted with health care than are Republicans.
- Republicans in Utah trust Republicans over Democrats 64-3%.
- Democrats say their party would handle health care better, 92-0%.
Independent voters in Utah are much more trusting of Democrats than Republicans on the health care issue.
- 40% say Democratic leaders could handle health care better while only 14% pick Republicans. That 26-point gap is significant and demonstrates the deep partisan divide on the issue.
The Dan Jones & Associates survey was conducted May 31 – June 5, 2017, among 607 registered Utah voters. It has a margin of error +/- 3.98%.
