This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, November 6, 2018.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The closing argument for Democrats nationally has been that Republicans want to end

insurance mandates that are meant

to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions. The trouble with the

polling in that area is that they focus almost exclusively on benefits and not costs. A new poll from the Cato Institute

takes a more balanced approach. Emily Eekin's comments. What brought about this

poll? Because it's you know days before the election we're looking at still pouring

over results here the day of the election so why do this poll? Well so it is a little bit maybe surprising that we would conduct a poll on health care issues right before the midterm election because everyone wants to you know everyone's following the horse race.

But we decided that given that this is the

number one issue for Democrats right now and Democrats are positioned to take the

House and kind of the centerpiece of their argument to voters is that they're going to

protect two regulations in the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare that are widely

known as these pre-existing conditions protections or regulations and that they're

running to protect those and that they're saying that Republicans would take them away.

And so there's been a lot to take a look at how people are thinking about health care. But in particular the Washington Post's editorial board

recently published an editorial about what they call the consensus on

pre-existing condition protections. And I have a quick quote here. They say, who says Americans are

hopelessly divided over political issues on one vital subject the

2018 campaign has revealed a consensus that is both broad and deep.

The people want government to require that health insurers cover everyone regardless of

pre-existing medical conditions, period. So those are the pre-existing medical conditions period.

...