Health care is the number one reason people say they'll vote this midterm

HOUSTON – The Texas Medical Center surveyed 5,000 people across America and found the number one reason people will head to the polls is motivated by health care.

Dr. Arthur “Tim” Garson, director of the Health Policy Institute at TMC, found the majority of voters will go to the poll for candidates they believe will fix the country's health care system.

"Republicans, Democrats, Independents, all say that the most important thing to them was the price of health care," Garson said.

Medicaid expansion has wide bipartisan appeal. In expansion states, more than 74 percent support continuing coverage for low-income adults.  In non-expansion states, 64 percent support expanding Medicaid to cover more people. 

MORE STATS: Read more information on the research

 

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Health care #1 reason people vote (PDF)
Health care #1 reason people vote (Text)

"You know, you don't hear a lot about the people who already have it and they don't want to lose it, you hear more about the people that don't have it who want it. So the 74 percent is a big number," Garson said.

He said the most surprising issues revealed in their poll are not even hot-button issues this midterm. For example, nearly half of Americans support lowering the legal blood alcohol limit while driving to 0.0 percent.

“More Texans said they wanted no alcohol in their blood, and now that surprised us. The same thing with tobacco,” Garson said.

More than 80 percent of people don't want tobacco sold to people under 21 and more than half don't want tobacco sold at all. Plus, the majority of people say we need a crackdown on fatty foods.

Click here for the complete breakdown of how people in each political party answered the survey.

Of the people in this poll, 38 percent said they would re-elect President Donald Trump in 2020.