Healthcare costs could be a sleeper midterm elections issue

With Election Day around the corner, the midterm elections have been widely portrayed as a referendum on decades-high inflation, stubbornly expensive gas prices, abortion policy, and the lingering influence of former President Donald Trump, among other issues. But there’s another policy area that may be just as or more important: healthcare costs.

A range of recent surveys showed the public is deeply concerned about annually rising healthcare costs. It’s just the kind of bread-and-butter issue — and frequently a life-and-death one — that can motivate voter choices at the polls, even if it means bucking the party of the candidates they usually vote for.