NEW YORK -
Healthcare is the top issue Americans want Donald Trump to address during his
first 100 days in the White House, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released
on Thursday, an apparent rebuke of outgoing President Barack Obama's signature
reform, Obamacare.
Some 21
percent of Americans want Trump to focus on the healthcare system when he
enters the White House on Jan. 20, according to the Nov. 9-14 poll, conducted
in the week after the Republican won the U.S. presidential election.
Jobs took
second place with 16 percent of Americans hoping it would be Trump's first
agenda item, while immigration came third - picked by 14 percent of Americans,
according to the poll. Some 11 percent picked race relations.
The poll shows
what priorities Americans would set on the new president, but it does not
measure exactly what people want him to do. A separate Kaiser Health Tracking
Poll found in late October that most Americans want cheaper prescription drugs
and access to larger networks of doctors and hospitals. Only a minority, 37
percent, want to repeal Obamacare altogether and start over, as Trump has
promised to do.
"We can't
afford it -- that's the problem," said Daphne Saunders, 50, of LaFollette,
Tennessee, who took the Reuters/Ipsos poll, explaining why she picked
healthcare as the top issue.
Saunders lost
her employer-subsidized insurance when she left a job at a university in 2011
and has been paying roughly $300 per month since then for check-ups and
prescription drugs to manage a heart condition and diabetes.
She said the
cheapest Obamacare plan would cost her $450 per month with a $50 co-pay every
time she saw a doctor.
"Those
premiums should be more manageable," Saunders said. "I would expect
to pay no more than $100" per month.
Obama's 2010
Affordable Care Act has been credited with expanding coverage to as many as 25
million people. But the law has been weakened through various legal challenges.
Some of the biggest health insurers have pulled out of insurance exchanges
after losing money, and insurance premiums have increased for those who do not
receive government insurance subsidies.
Trump has
promised to repeal Obamacare with "something that works," though he
has not articulated what he would propose in its place. It is also not clear
how swiftly a Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress could
change the law.
Obama said
this week he would endorse a Trump plan if it improved the healthcare system
while insuring the same number of people.
GETTING USED
TO 'PRESIDENT TRUMP'
The poll also
found that Americans have mostly accepted the result of the Nov. 8 election,
after one of the most divisive campaigns in memory. Some 85 percent said they
accept the results as legitimate, and 63 percent said they would support the new
president.
The 2016
campaign appears also to have mostly energized the public. Some 45 percent of
Americans say they "feel more motivated" to vote in future elections,
and 42 percent are more motivated to read and inform themselves about politics.
A majority of
Americans still think the country is headed on the wrong track, however, and
their expectations for a Trump presidency differed according to party
membership.
Most
Republicans were optimistic about his presidency, while most Democrats were
pessimistic.
Overall, a
plurality of Americans believe Trump will be helpful for businesses and
corporations, military veterans, people who work in the manufacturing industry,
the middle class and the elderly. A plurality also believes that he will be
harmful for gays, women, blacks, Hispanics, and people living in poverty.
The
Reuters/Ipsos poll is conducted online in English in all 50 states. It included
1,782 American adults and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of
3 percentage points.
Reuters
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