Elderly Worries About Government and Health Care

Concerns about the government’s involvement in health care are considerably more pronounced among older Americans, almost all of whom participate in the federal Medicare program, than among younger Americans; just 39% of those under age 30 say they are “concerned that the government is becoming too involved in health care,” while 53% of those age 65 and older do so. Such concern is also more prevalent among men (50%) than women (42%), whites (49%) than blacks (36%), and among higher income groups. Republicans, by more than two-to-one (68% vs. 30%) agree that they worry about the involvement of government in health care, while Democrats disagree by nearly the same margin (66% disagree, 29% agree), resulting in the single largest partisan divide over any of the 77 values questions in the 2009 Pew Research Center values survey. Read More