Republican Gov. Bill Haslam speaks at the state Capitol in Nashville on April 23, 2015.NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A new Vanderbilt University poll finds an overwhelming majority of Tennesseans support Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s failed proposal to extend health coverage to 280,000 low-income residents.
The results of the survey released Wednesday also finds that about two in three voters find the state Legislature does not spend enough time on issues they care about, though the General Assembly’s 55 percent popularity rating remained unchanged from the university’s last poll in November.
Haslam’s Insure Tennessee proposal was defeated twice in Senate committees during the recently-concluded legislative session. But the poll of 1,001 registered voters between April 23 and May 9, finds that 78 percent want the full Legislature to vote on the proposal. Sixty-four percent said they support Insure Tennessee, while 19 percent said they oppose it.
News report from Insure Tennessee’s death: