More than half (51 percent) of U.S. adults say it is the responsibility of the government to ensure all Americans have health insurance, according to a recent poll from Gallup.
The percentage of people who believe the government should guarantee all Americans have healthcare coverage in 2015 rose six percentage points from 2014. This year marks the first since 2008 that a majority of Americans believe the government has this obligation.
Between 2000 and 2008, 54 percent to 69 percent of Americans believed ensuring healthcare coverage for all citizens was the federal government's responsibility. However, as President Barack Obama worked to enact the Affordable Care Act in 2009, the issue became more contentious; Americans were relatively evenly divided on the matter from 2009 to 2011, according to Gallup. Public opinion shifted from 2012 to 2014, with a slight majority saying the government was not responsible for ensuring healthcare coverage for all.
The latest poll was conducted Nov. 4-8 as part of Gallup's annual Health and Healthcare survey.
Gallup found that Americans who approve of the ACA are more than three times as likely as those who oppose it to say healthcare coverage should be the government's responsibility (80 percent vs. 26 percent, respectively).