Dem primary voters rank health care as top issue

Health care issues are most important to likely Democratic primary voters, according to a new poll. 

Twenty-five percent of the voters surveyed in the Morning Consult poll say health care issues are most important, closely followed by 22 percent who chose economic issues.

{mosads}Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., are more likely to say health care issues are most important to them than backers of former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), pollsters found. The survey only included information on where supporters of these four candidates stand on the issues.

Thirty-four percent of respondents who were Buttigieg supporters cited health care as their top issue, compared to 27 percent of Warren supporters, 26 percent of Sanders supporters and 24 percent of Biden supporters. 

Health care ranked as the most important issue for supporters of Sanders, Buttigieg and Warren, but was only the second most-important issue to Biden supporters. 

Twenty-six percent of the vice president’s supporters say seniors’ issues are most important to them, slightly edging out those who care most about health care and economic issues.

The online poll of 14,335 registered voters was conducted from April 15 to April 21 and has a margin of error of 1 percent.

Health care is looking to be one of the top issues candidates focus on, with Sanders’s “Medicare for All” dominating the stage. Warren also supports that single-payer plan, which would eliminate private insurance and put everyone on the same health care plan managed by the government.

Buttigieg has said he supports a Medicare expansion plan that wouldn’t eliminate private insurance, while Biden, who hasn’t yet announced a presidential run, has been silent on the issue.