Sixty-nine percent of Democrats and 55% of Republicans believe the U.S. health-care system could be improved by creating an insurance program that isn’t linked to individuals’ employers. Only 6% of those polled disagree strongly with that proposal, while 21% said they aren’t sure.

And this would seem to make sense in an era where changing jobs occurs relatively frequently, and most people are not employed by large organizations and therefore are not certain to find group coverage. As I’ve explored in a previous article, the employers providing health benefits are not doing it because they gain great benefits in optimizing the health of their employees.

However, despite the poll’s headline “Americans want leaders to address coverage for uninsured” the data within the poll shows that Americans do not care strongly about changing the system, which means that little is likely to happen when hard choices need to be made. As marketers will tell you, people who do not feel strongly about an issue are unlikely to actually push for change.

In the data presented below, it is clear that only up to ~1/3 of those responding actually felt strong agreement with any of the statements, and this is in the absence of any hard choices or trade-offs. As we’ve seen with health proposals in the last few decades, the details of those proposals are likely to drain support from different factions as compromises are made.

Therefore, it seems that there is support for a disruptive play that separates health funding from employment, but that it is unlikely to originate with sufficient force from the political realm (or from employees) and much more likely to come from consumerism organizations that create opportunities for consumers to vote with their feet and paychecks in an easy way.

“To what extent do you personally agree or disagree with the following statements about the U.S. health-care system?”

Base: All adults

	Agree Strongly/Some-what(Net)	Agree Strongly	Agree Somewhat	Disagree Strongly/Somewhat(Net)	Disagree Somewhat	Disagree Strongly	Not Sure
It is the government’s duty to ensure that all Americans have adequate health-care coverage.	65%	38%	27%	27%	14%	13%	9%
The U.S. health-care system would benefit most from greater funding and better payments to health-care providers.	50	17	33	31	18	13	19
The U.S. health-care system works better for the very poor and the wealthy than it does for the middle class.	61	31	29	26	16	10	13
The U.S. health-care system could be improved by creating an insurance program that isn’t linked to individuals’ employers.	62	25	37	17	12	6	21
The U.S. health-care system works pretty well if you are healthy but it doesn’t do a good job when you are sick.	63	27	36	25	18	7	12
The U.S. health-care system could be improved by making changes to the tax code that would encourage people to purchase private health insurance.	47	15	31	31	18	14	22

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