Kentuckians said healthcare is the top issue they want lawmakers to address, ahead of jobs, education and crime, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
"Kentuckians don't particularly like the Affordable Care Act, but they do like their state's Medicaid expansion and marketplace, and most want to keep them," Kaiser Family Foundation CEO and President Drew Altman said in a statement on the poll results. "The findings in a red state may show other governors considering expansion that it could be equally popular with their state's residents, and illustrate to Republicans in Washington how difficult it may be to take away health coverage from people who have it."
Here are 10 key findings from the poll.
- Seventy-two percent of Kentuckians say they want the state's level of Medicaid expansion to remain the same, and not be reduced to cover fewer residents.
- Twenty percent are in favor of scaling back Medicaid expansion.
- Fifty-four percent of Republican respondents support Medicaid expansion as it exists today in Kentucky.
- Even when told the incoming governor calls Medicaid "unsustainable" and "unaffordable," 59 percent of respondents are still in favor of Medicaid expansion.
- Fifty-two percent of respondents want to keep the state health insurance exchange created under the ACA.
- Twenty-six percent want to switch to the federal marketplace.
- Forty-nine percent say they are not in favor of the ACA.
- Forty-one percent say they support the ACA.
- Thirty-seven percent say the coverage expansions under the ACA have had a negative impact on the state budget.
- Eighteen percent feel they have had a positive impact.
The poll was conducted Nov. 18 to Dec. 1 via telephone among more than 1,000 Kentucky residents.
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