Tom Zawierucha, 58, a construction worker in New Jersey, wishes candidates would talk more about protecting older Americans from high medical bills.
Teresa Morton, 43, a freight carrier 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 service representative in Wisconsin, yearns for relief from the high drug prices and medical bills that have driven her and her husband deep into debt. “How much are we going to pay?” she said. “It’s just something I always think about.”
Healthcare has not played a prominent role in this increasingly bitter situation presidential campaign. And the economy is generally at the top of voters’ list of concerns.
But Americans remain deeply concerned about paying for medical care, national surveys show.
Two in three American adults said in a recent national poll by West Health and Gallup that they are concerned that a major health event would land them in debt. A similar share indicates that healthcare is not receiving enough attention in the campaign.
To better understand voters’ concerns about health care as the 2024 campaign comes to a close, KFF Health News teamed up with research firm PerryUndem to convene a pair of focus groups last week with 16 people from around the country. PerryUndem is a nonpartisan firm based in Washington, DC, that studies public opinion on health care and other issues.
Focus group participants represented a broad swath of the electorate, with some favoring Republican candidates and others favoring Democrats. But almost all of them shared a common complaint: Neither presidential candidate has talked enough about how they would help people struggling to pay for medical care.
“You don’t really hear much about health care costs,” said Bob Groegler, 46, who works in housing finance in eastern Pennsylvania. Groegler said he worries he may never be able to retire because he won’t have enough money to pay his medical bills.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has not offered a detailed health care agenda, though he criticizes current laws and says he has “concepts for a plan” to improve the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare .
Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, has offered more detailed health care proposals, including building on legislation signed by President Joe Biden to reduce patient bills.
In 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which limits how much Medicare enrollees have to pay out-of-pocket for prescription drugs, including a $35 monthly cap on insulin. The legislation also provides additional federal aid to help Americans get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, although this aid will expire unless Congress and the president extend it next year.
Harris has said she will expand assistance and push for new help for Medicare enrollees who need home care. She has also pledged to continue federal efforts to alleviate medical debt, a nationwide problem affecting about 100 million people.
But most focus group participants said they knew little about these proposals and complained that hot-button issues such as abortion have dominated the campaign.
Many also expressed deep skepticism that Harris or Trump would do much to ease the burden of medical bills.
“I believe they are out of touch with our reality,” said Renata Bobakova, 46, a teacher and mother outside Cleveland. “We never know when we’re going to get sick. We never know when we’re going to fall or sprain an ankle. And the prices can be really astronomical. … I worry about that all the time.”
Bobakova, who is from Slovakia, said she returned to Europe 10 years ago to give birth to her daughter to avoid the crippling medical debt she knew she would incur in this country. Parents with private health insurance face an average of more than $3,000 in medical bills related to pregnancy and childbirth that are not covered by insurance.
Other focus group participants said they or people they knew had left the country to get cheaper prescription drugs. Research shows that the US 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 major hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and insurers for blocking efforts to lower patient costs to protect their profits. “I think everyone has their finger in the pie,” Gaudette said.
Martha Chapman, 64, who is also retired and lives in Philadelphia, pointed to what she called “corporate greed.” “I just don’t think it’s going to change,” she said.
In the final days of the campaign, that cynicism represents a particular problem for Harris, said Michael Perry, co-founder of PerryUndem, who led the two focus groups.
Harris has tried to distinguish herself as the candidate who takes policy more seriously and is more sympathetic to voters’ economic struggles, Perry said. And in recent weeks she has started broadcast new advertisements draw attention to healthcare issues.
But even focus group participants who said they lean Democratic seemed to blame both candidates for failing to address America’s health care concerns. “They’re not being listened to,” Perry said.
Nevertheless, many of the participants continued to express hope that an issue as important as health care would one day gain the attention of elected officials, regardless of political party.
“We’re all people here. We’re all people just trying to make it,” said Zawierucha, a construction worker in New Jersey. “If we get sick or have to go in to get something done, we need to have the peace of mind that we can go in there and not have to worry about paying it off for the next 20 years.”
“Just give us some peace of mind,” he said.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of its core operating programs KFF – the independent source for health policy research, opinion polls and journalism.
