Obama’s health insurance overhaul a midterms winner

This election showed a nation in step with former president’s approach to health care

The personality looming over the 2018 midterms was President Donald Trump. The issue was health care, the top concern for voters as they decided how to cast their ballots.

This week’s election showed a nation increasingly — if belatedly — in step with former President Barack Obama’s approach to it.

Health care was the top issue for about one-fourth of voters, ahead of immigration and jobs and the economy, according to VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 115,000 voters and about 22,000 non-voters conducted for The Associated Press. Those most concerned with health care supported Democratic candidates overwhelmingly, helping the party claim the House.

Affordable care again

While Republicans’ hold on the Senate grew, putting Democrats in control of the lower chamber makes it even less likely that Trump will be able to undo Obama’s overhaul, which created subsidised coverage for some lower-income people, allowed states to expand Medicaid coverage for others, and barred insurers from discriminating against people with preexisting medical conditions.

The law was one of Obama’s key accomplishments, but it proved unpopular after Democrats passed it without a single Republican vote. A backlash propelled the GOP to take control of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014, narrowing what Obama could accomplish. But by last year, “Obamacare” was popular enough that a GOP-controlled Senate blocked an effort to scrap the overhaul.

In Nevada, majority of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of health care. Voters in Republican-dominated Idaho, Nebraska and Utah all passed ballot measures to expand Medicaid, which could bring coverage for 363,000 more low-income adults, adding to the 12 million already covered. Under the Affordable Care Act, federal taxpayers pick up most of the bill for the expansion.