Voters worry about high drug costs
WASHINGTON — The debate over creating a single government health plan for all Americans may have dominated the Democratic presidential campaign, but most voters are focused on a more basic pocketbook issue: prescription drug prices.
In poll after poll, the high cost of medications is at or near the top of voters’ health care concerns, far outpacing interest in moving all or some people into Medicarelike coverage.
That, in turn, is pushing candidates to turn more directly to the issue on the campaign trail in early primary and caucus states, including Iowa, whose caucuses formally kick off the race for the nomination in two weeks.
Several Democratic hopefuls — including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar — are running television ads in Iowa highlighting their commitment to tackling drug costs.
“You talk to any Iowan, and it is almost certain to come up,” said Anthony Carroll, associate Iowa state director for AARP, the mammoth national advocacy group for seniors, which has made controlling drug prices a top priority. “What I hear from voters is that they can’t afford to wait.”
In one recent poll, two-thirds of Iowa voters identified prescription drugs costs as the most significant health care concern, matched only by worries about overall outof-pocket health care costs.
The survey by Morning Consult found similar sentiment among voters in New
Hampshire and South Carolina, whose primaries follow the Iowa caucuses.
Similarly, a nationwide poll in September by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found that 70% of Americans wanted members of Congress to make lowering drug prices their top priority.
By contrast, just 30% of people said enacting a national “Medicare for All” plan should top lawmakers’ agenda.
“In all our polling over the years, health care costs are at or near the top, but it is prescription drugs that are really the salient issue,” said the foundation’s Mollyann Brodie, who has been polling Americans about health care issues for more than two decades.
“People are refilling their prescriptions constantly and they see what they’re paying.”
The challenge has become particularly acute for patients as health insurance deductibles soar, forcing growing numbers of Americans to skip care and delay filling prescriptions.
A focus on drug prices is likely to not only resonate with Democratic primary voters, but also to highlight one of President Donald Trump’s major policy vulnerabilities.
Seven in 10 Americans don’t believe Trump is doing enough to lower drug prices, according to a November poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Trump made controlling drug prices a key plank of his 2016 campaign, promising to deliver relief to patients by, among other things, allowing Medicare to start negotiating directly with drug companies.