Health care will be the top issue for voters in the 2020 election, according to a new poll.

Twenty-four percent of those surveyed in the WSJ/NBC poll said health care was their top priority. Immigration came in second place, at 18 percent, while job creation came in third at 14 percent. In a three-way tie at 11 percent were climate change, national security and the deficit. Guns and “other” came in last, at 5 and 6 percent, respectively.

The 2018 elections showed that the issue can open up opportunities for Democrats in traditionally unfriendly territory. Voters in solidly Republican Utah, Idaho and Nebraska voted to expand Medicaid, rebuking GOP state legislatures that had resisted implementing the Obamacare program.

Many in the Democratic Party's more liberal wing believe that the nation is ready to embrace a radical restructuring of the health care system. The “Medicare for All” single-payer proposal popularized by Bernie Sanders has now been endorsed by a number of mainstream Democrats running for president, such as Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.

In the WSJ/NBC poll, half said they would be willing to pay more in taxes to provide universal coverage. While that appears to be promising for single-payer advocates, other polls have shown that people's support for single-payer erodes significantly when told that they would give up their employer-sponsored coverage.

As a result, Booker, Harris and even liberal firebrand Elizabeth Warren have made vague appeals to establishing the new system alongside the existing system, even if that runs counter to the central premise of single-payer.

Support for the Affordable Care Act has risen since President Trump took office, and support has increased in response to GOP efforts to kill the law. Roughly half of voters expressed support for the ACA in an April Gallup poll. Ongoing legal efforts by the Trump administration to gut the ACA, including provisions protecting patients from discrimination based on preexisting conditions, have made Republicans in Congress nervous.

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Health care will be the key voter issue in 2020

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