A survey by the A-A-R-P shows likely Iowa voters over the age of 50 favor maintaining or increasing spending on transportation projects, education, and long term care. Iowa A-A-R-P state director, Bruce Koepple, says those in the poll were asked to prioritize funding for eight areas.

“Especially in these times of economic uncertainty and tough choices for state government, it’s significant to note that overwhelming majorities — 90% plus of likely voters — either want to maintain or increase funding for these priorities. The survey included 527 registered voters.

Koepple says the long-term care issue was one that stood out for him. He says it is the first time in an A-A-R-P survey that long term care support has equaled that of transportation and k-through-12 education. Koepple says it is a time when Iowans know state leaders face tough budget choices and he says the results quantify the “common sense” approach voters take to the issue that impact the quality of their life and their ability to plan for the future.

Koepple says the A-A-R-P has focused on the long-term care issue as the majority of Iowans have said they want to stay in their own homes rather going into a nursing home as they get older. This is the first A-A-R-P survey taken since the healthcare reform act was passed by the federal government. Koepple can’t say how that might have impacted the survey results.

Koepple says the questions are pretty specific about long-term care and he says as they’ve talked with people across the state, they are still learning about the health care reform law. He says it’s not clear if people really understand what is contained in that law regarding long-term care, and he says he doesn’t know if that had any impact on people’s responses. Koepple says the makeup of those in the poll was notable.

Koepple says the broke things down in terms of conservative, moderate and liberal, and the survey skewed conservative, which he says is “significant.” Koepple says they asked each person to identify if they were moderate, liberal or conservative and that led to the conservative leaning result. Funding for natural resources protection and public safety, including courts and jails scored the lowest in the survey.

Koepple says 410 of the 527 people in the survey said they were likely to vote in the upcoming election. You can see the entire survey at: www.aarp.org/ia