This shouldn't be how millions of Americans get health care.
More PPP red state polling for MoveOn finds not only
good news for Democrats, but also highlights a very potent issue for Democrats in 2014: Medicaid expansion and the five million people who are
being locked out of it.
According to new polling by Public Policy Poling conducted for MoveOn, voters support Medicaid expansion in key states by wide margins: 52 to 35 percent in Kansas, 58 to 33 percent in Florida, 59 to 30 percent in Pennsylvania, 54 to 38 percent in Georgia. All are states where Medicaid expansion has been blocked by Republican politicians. In Virginia, where the GOP has also blocked Medicaid expansion, a previous poll found that even a majority of state Republican voters support extending coverage for the state’s low-income residents. And other polls show that three-out-of-four Americans nationwide, including a majority of Republicans, support Medicaid expansion.
Medicaid has always been a popular program, as has
Medicaid expansion, polling up around Medicare and Social Security as a program voters really value. That's because Americans, minus the Paul Ryan/tea party minority, don't think poor people should be punished just for being poor.
Medicaid expansion is a life and death issue. As many as 17,000 people could die prematurely because they aren't getting the health care that Medicaid expansion would provide. It's also an economic issue, with the potential to save states billions.
Voters are smart enough to get all that. Democrats just have to make sure they hear about it.