A plurality of Americans say they believe health care is the most important issue facing the country right now, a new Bloomberg News poll has found.
Health care was cited by 35% of Americans as the most important challenge facing the nation.
It is the first time in the Bloomberg poll’s history that respondents have said health care is the most pressing issue. Since it was first included in July 2010 as a response to the question of which issue is most important, health care has never been cited by more than 20% of Americans as most pressing and has never outranked all other issues.
Unemployment and jobs, terrorism or government spending have typically been mentioned as the most important issue.
The finding is significant in light of an anticipated Senate vote on the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had planned to hold a vote this week, but Sen. John McCain’s absence due to a blood clot surgery over the weekend has delayed that vote.
President Donald Trump warned senators not to leave for August recess without passing a repeal bill, but Americans gave the President low marks on health care. Sixty-four percent of respondents disapprove of the way Trump is handling health care. Just 28% of all Americans approve of his handling of the issue. Sixty-two percent of Trump voters, however, say they approve of his handling of health care, which is still below the nearly 90% of Trump voters who approve of his job in the White House.
Unemployment and jobs ranked as the second most cited issue in the poll, with 13% of Americans rating it most important. Eleven percent said terrorism was most important, while immigration and climate change were both rated most important by 10% of respondents.
The poll was conducted in English from July 8 to 12, based on interviews with 1,001 US adults ages 18 and older and has a +/- 3.1 percentage point margin of error. The pollsters dialed numbers from random samples of both landlines and cell phones.