What Do Americans Think about Their Health Coverage Ahead of the 2020 Election?

Several polls have indicated that health care will be a top issue for Americans in their choice of nominee for the 2020 presidential election.¹ While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has dramatically cut the number of Americans without health insurance, reduced consumers’ overall out-of-pocket spending, and ensured that people with preexisting health conditions can get the coverage they need, significant problems remain: about 30 million people remain uninsured, an estimated 44 million are underinsured, and health care costs are growing faster than median income in most states.²

Several of the Democratic candidates have proposed health reform plans aimed at addressing these problems. Their proposals range from building on the ACA’s coverage expansions, such as providing more generous subsidies for those purchasing coverage, to creating a public plan option or reorganizing the health system to make a public plan like Medicare the nation’s primary source of coverage.

The Commonwealth Fund’s new Health Insurance in America Survey provides the latest information on the state of health insurance coverage for working-age adults, their coverage experiences and views, and their views of current health policy proposals. To conduct the survey, the survey research firm SSRS interviewed a nationally representative sample of 4,914 adults ages 19 to 64 from March 19 through June 9, 2019. Seventy percent of respondents completed the questionnaire by landline or cell phone, while 30 percent completed it online after being contacted by mail. (This approach represents a significant change from the previous sampling methodology used for the survey and affected trends in responses to certain questions.