Mason Dixon took a poll for Florida TaxWatch which indicates Floridians strongly support COVID-19 business and healthcare liability protections by 72 percent and 74 percent, respectively.
Support for those positions extends through party affiliation, age, gender, race/ethnicity and region.
Florida TaxWatch President and CEO Dominic Calabro weighed in on the poll on Wednesday.
“Florida TaxWatch has been a longtime advocate of this issue and, clearly, we hit the mark. Through this survey, we confirmed that the vast majority of taxpayers want to shield responsible, hard-working business owners and dedicated healthcare workers from frivolous COVID-19 liability lawsuits. Make no mistake – we must ensure that good actors are protected, and bad actors are punished, but Floridians recognize that if this legislation does not pass, we are headed down a slippery slope that has the potential to destroy our economy by as much as $27.6 billion with an annual job loss of more than 356,000,” said Calabro.
Florida TaxWatch noted there was strong support for legislation from state Rep. Lawrence McClure, R-Plant City, and state Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, to offer businesses and healthcare organizations more protection during the pandemic. Sixty-four percent of Democrats back protections for businesses, and 76 percent support protecting healthcare providers. Most Republicans–81 percent–want more protection for businesses while 71 percent of them want more healthcare provider protections. Independents’ responses closely matched the statewide numbers, with 70 percent backing businesses and 75 percent for healthcare providers
The Mason Dixon poll of 625 Florida voters was taken from Feb. 24 through Feb. 28 and had a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.
