Tom Zawierucha, 58, a building services worker in New Jersey, wishes candidates would talk more about protecting older Americans from big medical bills.
Teresa Morton, 43, a freight dispatcher in Memphis, Tennessee, with two teenagers, wants to hear more about how elected officials would help working Americans saddled with unaffordable deductibles.
Yessica Gray, 28, a customer support representative in Wisconsin, craves relief from high drug prices and medical bills that have driven her and her husband deep into debt. 鈥淗ow much are we going to pay?鈥 she said. 鈥淚t’s just something that’s always on my mind.鈥
Health care hasn鈥檛 figured prominently in this increasingly acrimonious presidential campaign. And the economy has generally topped the list of voters鈥 concerns.
But Americans remain intensely worried about paying for medical care, national surveys show.
Two in 3 U.S. adults in a recent by West Health and Gallup said they鈥檙e concerned a major health event would land them in debt. A similar share said health care isn鈥檛 getting enough attention in the campaign.
To better understand voters鈥 health care concerns as the 2024 campaign nears an end, 杨贵妃传媒視頻 Health News worked with , which convened a pair of focus groups last week with 16 people from across the country. PerryUndem, which paid to organize the focus groups, is a nonpartisan firm based in Washington, D.C., that studies public views on health care and other issues.
The focus group participants represented a broad swath of the electorate, with some favoring Republican candidates, and others Democrats. But nearly all shared a common complaint: Neither presidential candidate has talked enough about how they鈥檇 help people struggling to pay for medical care.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 really hear anything much about health care costs,鈥 said Bob Groegler, 46, who works in residential financing in eastern Pennsylvania. Groegler said he鈥檚 worried he may never be able to retire because he won鈥檛 have enough money to pay his medical bills.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, hasn鈥檛 offered a detailed , though he criticizes current laws and said he has 鈥渃oncepts of a plan鈥 to improve the 2010 Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare.
Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, has laid out more detailed , including building on legislation signed by President Joe Biden to lower patients鈥 bills.
In 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which limits how much Medicare enrollees must pay out-of-pocket for prescription drugs, including a $35 monthly cap on insulin. The legislation also provides additional federal aid to help Americans buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, though this aid will expire unless Congress and the president renew it next year.
Harris has said she will expand the aid and push for who need home care. She also has pledged to continue federal efforts to relieve medical debt, a nationwide problem that burdens about 100 million people.
But most of the focus group participants said they knew little about these proposals, complaining that hot-button issues like abortion have dominated the campaign.
Many also expressed deep skepticism that either Harris or Trump would do much to lighten the burden of medical bills.
鈥淚 believe they鈥檙e out of touch with our reality,鈥 said Renata Bobakova, 46, a teacher and mother outside Cleveland. 鈥淲e never know when we鈥檒l get sick. We never know when we鈥檒l fall down or sprain an ankle. And prices really can be astronomical. 鈥 I’m constantly worried about that.鈥
Bobakova, who is from Slovakia, said she went back to Europe to give birth to her daughter 10 years ago to avoid crippling medical debt she knew she鈥檇 incur in this country. Parents with private health coverage face on average more than $3,000 in medical bills related to a pregnancy and childbirth that aren鈥檛 covered by insurance.
Other focus group participants said they or people they knew had left the country to get cheaper prescription drugs. The U.S. has the highest medical prices in the world, .
Several focus group participants, such as Kevin Gaudette, 64, a retired semiconductor engineer in North Carolina, blamed large hospitals, drug companies, and insurers for blocking efforts to lower patients鈥 costs to protect their profits. 鈥淚 think everybody has their finger in the pie,鈥 Gaudette said.
Martha Chapman, 64, who is also retired and lives in Philadelphia, pointed to what she called 鈥渃orporate greed.鈥 鈥淚 just don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 going to change,鈥 she said.
In the closing days of the campaign, that cynicism represents a particular problem for Harris, said PerryUndem co-founder Michael Perry, who led the two focus groups.
Harris has tried to distinguish herself as the candidate who is more serious about policy and more sympathetic to voters鈥 economic struggles, Perry said. And in recent weeks, she鈥檚 begun highlighting health care issues.
But even focus group participants who said they lean Democratic seemed to blame both candidates for not addressing Americans鈥 health care concerns. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not feeling listened to,鈥 Perry said.
Many of the participants nevertheless continued to express hope that an issue as important as health care would someday get the attention of elected officials, regardless of political party.
鈥淲e’re all human beings here. We’re all people just trying to make it,鈥 said Zawierucha, the building services worker in New Jersey. 鈥淚f we get sick or have to go in and get something done, we should have that peace of mind that we can go in there and not have to worry about paying it off for the next 20 years.鈥
鈥淛ust give us some peace of mind,鈥 he said.
[Clarification: This article was revised at 11:35 a.m. ET on Oct. 24, 2024, to more clearly describe how the focus groups were organized.]
