Poll: Majority back government health care, ACA approval soars

Access to health care – and how to pay for it – was a key issue in this fall’s presidential and congressional elections. More than 6 in 10 Americans (62%) now say it is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that all Americans have health care coverage, according to a Gallup poll conducted in early to mid-November.

This percentage was the highest in a decade, after dropping as low as 42% in 2013 and climbing as high as 69% in 2006. Public sentiment has ebbed and flowed in recent decades:

• Between 2000 and 2008, consistent majorities of Americans believed the government should make sure all people in the United States have health coverage.
• That changed during Barack Obama’s presidency, as he worked with a Democratic Congress to pass the Affordable Care Act to increase health coverage, sparking opposition by some Americans to a larger government role in health care.
• By 2009, U.S. adults were divided on whether the government was responsible for ensuring health care coverage for all Americans.
• From 2012 through 2014, majorities did not believe the government should have that role, as support among independents and Republicans waned.
• Public opinion shifted back to seeing health care access as a government responsibility in the latter years of Obama’s presidency, and this has been the prevailing view since then.

Although Republicans and Democrats have long viewed the role of the federal government differently, agreement that the government has a responsibility to ensure health care coverage for all Americans has increased among independents and Republicans. Although a minority of Republicans still hold this view, the 32% who do so is up from 22% in 2020. The percentage of independents who believe the government is responsible for ensuring health coverage, 65%, is up six points from 2020.