Even as the Supreme Court's landmark decision on the Affordable Care Act loomed, only six percent of Americans in June cited healthcare as the most important problem facing the country, according to a new Gallup survey released the day after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling on the Affordable Care Act.
Healthcare had peaked as a top issue in August and September of 2009, during the Democrats' push to pass President Barack Obama's health care law. At the time, 26 percent cited it as the most important problem facing the United States.
But since the president and Democrats were able to shepherd the legislation through Congress, Americans have seen health care as a much lower priority -- over the last six months of this year, an average of seven percent have said health care is the top problem.
Although health care hasn't been on the tops of many American's minds, Americans do find it rather important -- when, that is, they're reminded of it in a list of issues to rank.
In May, Gallup asked respondents to rate the importance of 10 economic issues, and Americans put healthcare at the top of the list, with 40 percent saying "the cost of healthcare" was extremely important and another 44 percent saying it was very important; this put it ahead of unemployment and the federal budget deficit.
Meanwhile, a separate Gallup survey found that those who were employed were in better health than those who weren't: Those who worked full time or voluntarily part time were less likely to be obese or have diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma than those who were looking for work.
The former Gallup survey was conducted June 7-10, with a sample of 1,004 adults and a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. The latter was conducted Jan. 2 to May 21, with a sample of 474,195 adults and a margin of error of between plus or minus 0.3 percentage points and plus or minus two percentage points, depending on the sub-sample.
