Will Voters Support Higher Taxes to Fund Universal Health Care? Oregon, 2019
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J Gen Intern Med DOI: 10.1007/s11606-020-05959-z © Society of General Internal Medicine 2020
This survey question is of import to state legislators who will want to know whether voters will accept the increased taxes needed to finance a statewide UHC plan.
INTRODUCTION
Many state legislators fear voting for universal health care (UHC) bills, believing their constituents will reject the requisite new taxes. Consequently, of 18 state legislatures that have considered them,1 only Vermont’s legislature passed a UHC bill. Even then, it refused to enact new taxes to fund it.2 Legislative approval of UHC requires confidence that voters will accept new taxes. Half of Americans report that their federal income tax is too high.3 Tax increases to fund statewide UHC plans must be large: a 2017 RAND Corporation study in Oregon found that current statewide private health care spending ($18 billion) approximates current total state government spending ($16 billion).4 Thus, a publicly funded, statewide, universal health care plan in Oregon would require doubling state tax collections. This distaste for new taxes may not extend to health care funding. A July 2019 survey by Elway Research (Seattle, WA) assessed Oregon voter support for a state-administered, tax-funded UHC plan that doubled or tripled state taxes.5 This survey was unique: no previous survey has asked voters about increasing taxes to fund statewide UHC. Prior Presentations A press release was issued by Warren George in 2019 (see reference 5). The results were lightly reported in local newspapers and electronic media: • https://stateofreform.com/news/oregon/2019/08/elway-poll-findsbroad-support-in-oregon-for-universal-care/ • https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2019/08/majority-oforegonians-support-statewide-universal-health-care-poll.html • https://khn.org/morning-briefing/wednesday-august-21-2019/#section-803914 (Kaiser Health News Morning Briefing, State Watch, August 21st, 2019). A presentation was made to state legislators and their aides in Salem, OR, on November 18, 2019. The results of the survey were presented at a meeting of the Oregon Health Forum, a monthly educational breakfast discussion in Portland, on November 19, 2019; at: https://www.oregonhealthforum.org/2019/10/ 20/november-19-2019-will-oregonians-accept-tax-funded-universalhealthcare/. There have been no presentations of this data at any scientific meetings or conferences. Received April 15, 2020 Accepted June 4, 2020
METHODS
In July 2019, Elway Research called 17,337 randomly selected names from the Oregon voter registration list. Up to six attempts were made to contact a voter at each number before a substitute number was called. In total, 1648 voters were contacted and 402 interviews were completed. Final completion rate was 2.3% (completed/total dialed) and final cooperation rate was 24% (completed/contacted). Respondents were asked eleven questions, including ones asking what health care problems they considered most important and the desirability of UHC. The data were weighted by age and p
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