Executive Summary

When it comes to health care reform, one thing is clear: the American electorate wants prevention to play a central role in shaping a new direction for our health care system.

Voters favor investing more in prevention, and support for an increased focus on the issue is solid and widespread. Voters view prevention as one of the most important pieces of health care reform, and they strongly back the specific initiatives being proposed to put us on a new, healthier path.

A new public opinion survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Public Opinion Strategies shows 71 percent of Americans favor an increased investment in disease prevention. Support for investing in disease prevention extends across the political spectrum (85 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of Republicans, and 68 percent of Independents) and across the country (72 percent in the Northeast, 73 percent in the South, 71 percent in the West, and 69 percent in the Midwest).

Key Findings

Disease prevention is one of the most popular components of health reform legislation. American voters rank investing in prevention equal to or ahead of nearly every other proposed health care reform initiative tested in this survey.

By a nearly three-to-one margin (70 - 24 percent), people think prevention will save us money rather than cost us money. Even once voters have been given the $34 billion price tag that comes along with the prevention proposals being considered, they say investing in prevention is worth the cost.

Methodology
This research was commissioned by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The poll, which reflects the responses from 1,008 registered voters, was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and Public Opinion Strategies from November 2 to 5, 2009.  The margin of error was +/- 3.1 percent.