Voters back health insurance reforms & AI safeguards

Inseparable has released focus group research on battleground-state voters' views on health insurance, youth mental health and artificial intelligence. The findings cover voters in Colorado, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Meeting Street Insights conducted eight focus groups with 78 voters, including Republicans, Democrats, independents and unaffiliated parents. The discussions explored access to care, the health insurance system, youth mental health and the use of AI in mental health settings.

Participants expressed broad dissatisfaction with health insurance, with affordability and access as the main complaints. Many said the system was hard to understand and that delays, denials and limited provider availability put care out of reach.

Asked to describe health insurers in one word, participants chose terms such as "frustrating", "expensive", "convoluted", "complicated" and "profit-driven". Support for a set of insurance reforms reached at least 74 per cent across the focus groups.

The proposals included requiring insurers to cover mental health emergencies on the same basis as physical health emergencies, improving provider directories and allowing out-of-network care at no extra cost when in-network providers are unavailable. Other measures included barring insurers from denying care recommended by a doctor and requiring public reporting on approvals, delays and access.

Several participants linked the issue to personal experience. A Pennsylvania mother said: "My husband died last year and it took me six months to find an appointment with a therapist for my children. By that point, we had already worked through so many of our issues on our own, what was even the point?"

A Georgia Republican man pointed to billing opacity: "I don't like the lack of transparency in health care that exists right now. I would never go anywhere in the country and buy something and then wait three months and figure out what I actually owe."

Another participant, a Colorado independent woman who works in healthcare, connected the issue to medicine costs and personal finances. "As a health care employee, definitely (health care is a concern). Because I see so many people that can't afford their medications. I struggle. I can't even afford the services that I provide," she said.

Youth concerns

Youth mental health also emerged as a major concern across the groups. Most participants said conditions for children and teenagers were getting worse, citing social media, isolation, pandemic disruption and financial pressure on families as key causes.

Voters broadly supported a role for schools in addressing the issue, particularly through work with parents, early identification of warning signs and links to treatment. One participant in Georgia said: "They all also have challenges we never had, like growing up during a pandemic and then social media. It's isolating kids."

AI guardrails

Views on AI were mixed. Participants said the technology could improve access and provide lower-level support, but many drew a clear line between limited use and replacing human care, especially in mental health.

Concerns centred on safety, accuracy, privacy, misinformation and job loss. The strongest reactions involved children, with participants raising fears about isolation, harmful information and a lack of safeguards for young users.

A Michigan Republican woman said: "It kind of takes away from human connection...you're on the screen more, you're not interacting with people, you're very isolated."

Support for regulation was strong. According to the findings, four in five participants strongly agreed that AI needs regulation to keep it safe, while proposed AI rules drew support ranging from 92 per cent to 99 per cent.

The measures tested included requiring human oversight for AI used in mental healthcare, banning AI-only insurance denials, requiring disclosure when users are interacting with AI and introducing stronger protections for children, including parental notification in cases of self-harm risk. Participants also backed safety-by-design standards for AI tools used by minors.

Bill Smith, Founder and CEO of Inseparable, said the discussions reflected both frustration and a demand for action. "What we heard in these focus groups is frustration, but also urgency," Smith said. "People are struggling to find and afford care, worried about their kids' mental health, and increasingly concerned about how new technologies like AI are being used. They want a system they can trust - one that is affordable, transparent, and accountable - and they overwhelmingly support commonsense safeguards to protect patients, especially young people. That kind of alignment across voters is rare, and policymakers should take notice."

The organisation said the findings follow its workforce report showing that no state is close to meeting mental health workforce needs.