New Polls Show Voters Want Congress to End Surprise Medical Billing

Two new polls from Families USA and Arnold Ventures confirm that voters want Congress to end surprise medical billing with reform that lowers healthcare costs for hardworking families.

Key highlights from the Families USA poll are included below:

• More than 4 in 10 (44%) voters have received a surprise medical bill.
• Across party lines, nearly 90% of voters support legislation to ban surprise bills.
• By a margin of 73% to 8%, voters prefer a bill that would pay providers a fair market rate, rather than allowing them to receive payments above a market rate, likely driving up premiums.
• Nearly 9 in 10 (89%) voters say it is important that their elected officials ban surprise bills. A majority (56%) say it is very important.
• Nearly 3 in 4 (74%) voters say they would be concerned if special interest lobbying kept policymakers from passing surprise medical billing reform.

Additionally, a new poll commissioned by Arnold Ventures and conducted by a bipartisan polling team (Geoff Garin of Hart Research Associates and Whit Ayres of North Star Opinion Research) found that:

• An overwhelming majority (94%) of voters say that Congress should take action on surprise medical billing.
• When asked to choose a policy solution, voters favor a benchmark approach by a factor of two to one over arbitration — 66% of voters would prefer paying providers the average in-network rate while only 30% would prefer arbitration.
• This is true of voters across the political spectrum. Republican (67%), Democrat (67%) and independent voters (63%) overwhelmingly support a benchmark solution over arbitration.

These polls are just another example of how frustrated voters are with surprise medical bills and how much they want Congress to take immediate action against surprise billing in a way that lowers premiums.

For full results from the polls, visit Families USA and Arnold Ventures.