About 51% of US adults are in favor of the Covid-19 public health emergency still in effect, while 39% said it is no longer necessary, a recent report said. survey found.
The report came from Morning Consult, which conducted poll between December 14 and December 19. It received responses from 2,210 American adults.
Currently, the public health emergency is set to end on January 11. The Biden administration has said it will give 60 days’ notice of when the emergency will end, and because it did not do so in November, the public health emergency is expected to be extended into April.
Americans’ opinions varied by political party, generation, race/ethnicity, and location. For example, 72% of Democrats said they think the public health emergency should still be in effect, compared to 34% of Republicans. About 56% of Baby Boomers said it should still be in effect, compared to 45% of Gen Zers. Additionally, 66% of black Americans believe a public health emergency should be in place, while 49% of white Americans said so. More adults in urban communities (58%) think it should be in force than rural adults (43%).
Almost half of respondents said the public health emergency should be extended until January, but two in five said it should not.
Under the public health emergency, Americans get coverage for Covid-19 services, such as tests, treatments and vaccines. However, the survey found that once the period ends, 46% of American adults are not interested in paying for Covid-19 products out of pocket. Meanwhile, 45% said they are interested and 9% said they don’t know.
The report comes later The 25 governors sent a letter on December 19 President Joe Biden seeking to end the public health emergency in April. In 2020, the Families First Responder Coronavirus Act was passed because of the pandemic, which prohibited states from disenrolling people from Medicaid during a public health emergency and gave them a temporary increase in federal Medicaid match rates. The governors stated that this is hurting the states and costing them significant money.
“The [public health emergency] is adversely affecting states, primarily by artificially increasing our Medicaid covered population (traditional and expanded populations), regardless of whether individuals continue to be eligible under the program,” the governors said. “While the expanded federal match provides some relief to mitigate rising costs due to higher enrollment numbers in our Medicaid programs, states are required to increase our non-federal match to adequately cover all enrollees, and cannot disenroll members from the program if they do not this. voluntarily.”
circle 18 million people could lose Medicaid coverage after the public health emergency expires, according to a recent Urban Institute report. This includes 3.8 million people who would become completely uninsured.
Photo: santima.studio, Getty Images
