Over half of Americans say lowering health care costs is among most important issues in deciding their presidential pick

Lowering the cost of health care and prescription drug prices and protecting Medicare and Social Security are among the most important issues for Americans in determining their vote for president, according to a new national West Health-Gallup Poll released today.

Nearly two-thirds say a candidate’s position on Medicare/Social Security (63%) is the single or among the most important issues, followed closely by health care costs (57%). Forty-three percent view access to mental health care as important, an emerging issue now seen as close to the level of importance as prescription drug prices (47%), which have been a concern for many years over multiple elections.

However, despite the importance of these issues to voters, two in three say health care is not yet receiving enough attention in the 2024 presidential campaign, and more Democrats (78%) and independents (66%) than Republicans (53%) hold this view. Only 6% of respondents say it’s getting too much attention, while 27% say it’s getting the right amount.

“Americans remain concerned over high health care prices and the future of Medicare and Social Security even though other issues dominate during this election cycle, and this is especially true for older Americans, a significant voting bloc,” said Timothy Lash, President, West Health Policy Center. “Americans across all political stripes want to know where candidates stand on these critical issues and do not think they’ve heard enough yet. It will be interesting to see how the candidates and political parties address this.”

Independent voters were slightly more likely to report trusting Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in addressing key health care issues, according to the survey. This was especially true for improving access to care and insurance coverage and strengthening Medicare. Independents were more than 10 points more likely to say they trust Harris over Trump when considering these issues.

It is notable that about a third of independents report not trusting either candidate on key health care issues. Republicans and Democrats generally fell along party lines, but more Democrats (about 90%) were trusting of their candidate than Republicans (about 70%).

When asked how likely it is that access to affordable health care will improve in the next five years, many Democrats express optimism, while Republicans and independents are more pessimistic. Fifty-eight percent of Democrats believe access is very or somewhat likely to improve, while majorities of Republicans (70%) and independents (64%) say improvement is not very or not at all likely.

Methodology

The West Health-Gallup Pre-Election Health care Survey was conducted via the web from Sept. 9-16, 2024, with 3,660 adults aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia as a part of the Gallup Panel. For results based on the full sample, the margin of sampling error at the 95% confidence level is ±2.0 percentage points for response percentages around 50% and is ±1.2 percentage points for response percentages around 10% or 90%, design effect included. Reported subgroups will have a larger margin of error, typically ±3 to ±5 percentage points.

Gallup weighted the combined samples to correct for nonresponse. Non-response adjustments were made by adjusting the sample to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education and region. Demographic weighting targets were based on the most recent Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population.

In addition to sampling errors, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.