Healthcare not government's responsibility, many in survey say

In a disturbing bit of survey news for the Obama administration, more than half of U.S. adults now do not think the federal government is responsible for ensuring that all Americans have healthcare coverage.

Those opinions, captured by Gallup in its latest annual Health and Healthcare Poll, represent a marked change in attitude toward the government's role in healthcare, according to the polling organization. Gallup began conducting the poll in 2000, and for the first nine years, the majority of adults answered each year that it is the federal government's responsibility to make sure Americans have healthcare coverage. That peaked in 2006 when 69% of U.S. adults surveyed said it is the government's responsibility, compared with 28% who didn't think this was the government's role.

But in the seven years since, that ratio has changed. This year, 56% of 1,039 respondents told Gallup the government has no such role, while 42% said it does. The new poll was conducted from Nov. 7-10, after it was clear that the federal insurance exchange was suffering severe problems and exchange enrollment in health plans was much lower than expected.

The shift in views was greatest among Republicans and independents. In 2000, 53% of Republicans surveyed said they believed the government should not be responsible for ensuring health coverage; 13 years later, it's up to 86%. The share of political independents who say it's not the government's role to ensure coverage has nearly doubled, from 28% in 2000 to 55% this year.

Though Republicans and independents are most responsible for the overall change in public opinion, even the share of Democrats who don't see a government role in ensuring coverage has increased, from 19% in 2000 to 30% now.

According to Gallup, the shift in attitudes toward government and its involvement in healthcare may be due in large part to the politicization of the healthcare issue, both during Barack Obama's first presidential campaign and the battle over passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010.

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