Poll shows most Americans favor Medicaid expansion

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Poll shows most Americans favor Medicaid expansion

By David Morgan
WASHINGTON | Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:02am EDT

(Reuters) - Most Americans back the idea of extending health coverage to their low-income neighbors through the government's Medicaid program, unless it means higher costs for their own state, according to a new poll.

In a survey released on Tuesday by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, 67 percent of respondents gave a favorable view of President Barack Obama's healthcare reform provision to "expand the existing Medicaid program to cover more low‐income, uninsured adults."

Support for the idea, which would expand coverage to as many as 16 million uninsured Americans, broke sharply along partisan lines. Nearly nine out of 10 survey participants who said they were Democrats and two‐thirds of independents backed the expansion. Six out of 10 Republican participants said they opposed it.

Support dropped to 49 percent when poll participants were asked whether they would like to see Medicaid expanded in their home states, and a slight majority of 52 percent preferred maintaining the status quo when pollsters suggested an expansion could cost their states more money.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/31/us-usa-healthcare-medicaid-poll-idUSBRE86U05P20120731

[gordianot]

1. Yes and how many realize that Republicans want to flush Medicaid as it is now?