The changing views on healthcare of younger Americans.
Sept. 13, 2023
A nationwide poll of Generation Z Americans conducted by the Association of American Medical Colleges Center for Health Justice found that people’s views of healthcare has evolved, so that the majority now believe it is a basic human right, according to reporting by in Becker’s Clinical Leadership.
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Here are key findings from the report, which were published Sept. 6 in the American Journal of Public Health.
- Seventy-six percent of Republican Gen Zers agreed with Democrats (93 percent) and Independents (86 percent) that access to health care is a basic human right, with more than two thirds of Republicans (68 percent) saying it is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that everyone has healthcare coverage. Although some in Congress recently proposed a regressive flat sales tax to replace the Internal Revenue Service, we saw bipartisan support among Gen Z members for economic policies that instead “try to reduce the gap in wealth between the richest and poorest Americans” (84 percent D, 70 percent I, 57 percent R) and “give economic support to those with lower incomes” (88 percent D, 74 percent I, 56 percent R).
- A majority of Republican Gen Zers (54 percent), unlike their Democratic (29 percent) and Independent (37 percent) counterparts believe that racial health inequities result from individual choices and not systemic racism, however, all three groups agreed (83 percent D, 68 percent I, 60 percent R) that COVID-19 “highlighted inequities that were already present in the U.S. healthcare system.”
- Similarly, although 60 percent of Republican Gen Zers endorsed the idea that “the role that racism plays in our society is overplayed,” a majority (55 percent) agreed with Democrats (89 percent) and Independents (75 percent) that it is important that the federal government address “racial residential segregation and discrimination in housing.”
