49% Oppose Single-Payer Health Care System

Roughly half (49%) of Americans oppose a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 35% of American Adults favor a single-payer health care system. Sixteen percent (16%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Fifty-two percent (52%) of Democrats like the idea of a single-payer system. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Republicans and a plurality (48%) of those not affiliated with either political party are opposed.

Rasmussen Reports asked the same question of Likely U.S. Voters during the extended debate over the national health care law passed by Congress last year. In August 2009, 57% opposed a single-payer system because many of those voters felt it would hurt the quality of health care and raise the costs.  In late December 2009, 52% opposed a single-payer plan with the government responsible for everyone.

As they have in every survey but one since it passed, most voters still want to see the national health care law repealed, and confidence that its days are numbered is at an all-time high.

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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on October 21-22, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.