Sixty-nine percent of the more than 800 Utah voters surveyed for the Utah Priorities Project earlier this year ranked healthcare as an issue of top concern, rating it a 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale, according to a research brief published by the Utah Foundation.
That was enough to push it to the top of the Project’s top 10 list as the most significant issue in the survey, ahead of air quality, K-12 education and state taxes and government spending.
Healthcare was also on the top 10 list at 4th place in 2012, the last year the Utah Priorities Project was conducted. This year, however, more voters listed it higher and pushed it into the top spot.
Utah Foundation Research Analyst Christopher Collard, the author of the brief, says election debates have increased interest in this issue.
“We think there was a little bit of additional interest in healthcare this election cycle because of the debate in the state legislature over the expansion of Medicaid and also just the rising cost of health care,” Collard said.
The cost of health care was the most significant worry expressed in the survey, and while hospital costs and insurance premiums continue to rise in Utah, the state also has the distinction of having some of the lowest healthcare costs in the United States.
