Poll: 43 percent support ‘Medicare for all’

Nearly 43 percent of Americans support the idea of “Medicare for all,” according to an Axios/Ipsos poll released Tuesday, as concerns over health costs mount ahead of the midterm elections.

People who said they support Medicare for all outnumbered its opponents by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, while a bipartisan majority of Americans said they think the federal government should be willing to spend more tax dollars to lower healthcare costs.

While respondents said they support federal involvement, they are losing trust in the government.

Roughly half of respondents said they have a “great deal or a fair amount of trust” in information about health topics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), down from 62 percent in March 2025.

Less than 20 percent of Americans said they trust information about health topics from President Trump, while just 25 percent said they trust Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Congress also got low scores, with 25 percent saying they trust Democrats in Congress on health topics, while 20 percent said they trust Republicans.

Like most polls about Medicare for all, the support was very partisan. More than 60 percent of Democrats said they support a program that would provide government-run health insurance to all Americans, largely replacing private health insurance. Just under half of independents said the same, while a majority of Republicans said they are opposed.

Medicare for all has been a slogan for progressive Democrats in previous campaigns, most notably when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ran for president in 2016 as well as the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

But amid crushing health costs, the latest findings show that there could be an opening for progressive Democrats campaigning on the idea to win over some swing-state voters.

A KFF survey last week found about two-thirds of Americans said they support the idea of Medicare for all, the highest share since the organization began polling on the idea 10 years ago.

Yet, many people don’t know how to define Medicare for all, and the KFF poll showed support changed when people were presented with arguments for and against. A national debate would likely include more details about costs and tradeoffs that aren’t being captured in surface-level campaign slogans.

The KFF survey found support declined when people heard the arguments that Medicare for all could lead to delays in medical tests and treatments and tax increases or threaten the current Medicare program. But support grew when respondents heard that a national insurance plan could make health insurance “a right” or eliminate premiums and cost-sharing.

According to the Axios poll, opponents said the top reason they do not support Medicare for All is a fear of a worse quality of care than private insurance, followed by feeling the program would be too expensive for taxpayers.

The Axios/Ipsos poll is based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,122 general population adults age 18 or older.

The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points