Spreading 'Like Wildfire': Majority of Americans—Including 74% of Democrats—Now Support Single-Payer

“Five years ago, could you have believed that half of Americans would agree we need a single-payer healthcare system?”

That’s how Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—a longtime advocate of guaranteeing healthcare for all Americans—responded to a new poll that found that 74 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of all adults surveyed support implementing a single-payer healthcare system in the United States.

“When people see the justice of an idea, it spreads like wildfire,” Sanders tweeted Thursday morning. “The American people know that healthcare should be a right.”

The Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll asked: “Do you support or oppose having a national health plan—or a single-payer plan—in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan?” More than half said they support it:

The results align with other polls conducted within the past year. In September, as Common Dreams reported, 49 percent of all voters and two-thirds of Democrats surveyed by Politico/Morning Consult said they supported “a single-payer healthcare system.” A KFF poll from July found that 53 percent of Americans somewhat or strongly favor a single-payer plan.