BETHESDA, MD – Many Americans may support the idea of health reform, but only a minority are willing to pay higher taxes to accomplish it, according to a study published in the journal Health Affairs.
In a January 2009 online survey, researchers at Stanford University's Hoover Institution asked Americans whether they would be willing to pay the higher taxes to cut the number of uninsured Americans by either a half or a quarter, through either Medicaid expansion or government subsidies to help low- and moderate-income people and their employers purchase insurance.
Researchers at the conservative think tank also asked whether survey participants would pay higher taxes to support a government subsidy to help chronically ill people purchase health coverage. Respondents were told that this last option would have only a small impact on the overall number of uninsured people, but that it would help everyone else get insurance by subsidizing the sickest people in the market.
Only the subsidy for chronically ill people received majority support, report Daniel Kessler, a professor in the graduate school of business and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and David Brady, a professor in the department of political science and deputy director of the Hoover Institution.
Lower-income respondents were more supportive of the various reform options presented than their higher-income counterparts; Kessler and Brady suggest that this is "not surprising," since lower-income households stand to benefit more from the reforms than higher-income households while paying less in terms of increased taxes.
