The Government And Medicare

Poll results: 39 percent of Americans want government to ‘stay out of Medicare.'

Conservatives have frequently obscured the fact that Medicare is a government-run single-payer program. Constituents appearing at health care town halls have even demanded that their members of Congress keep their "government hands off of Medicare." Now, a new Public Policy Polling poll finds that millions of Americans do not realize that the federal government runs Medicare:

One poll question indicative of how difficult it is to gain public understanding on a complicated issue asked if respondents thought the government should ‘stay out of Medicare,' something inherently impossible. 39% said yes.

The poll also shows that an additional 15% of respondents were "not sure" if the government should be involved in Medicare. Only 46% of respondents disagreed with the proposition that the government should stay out of the government-run program.