President Obama remains more trusted to address Medicare’s challenges in Florida, according to a poll released Thursday by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Asked whom they trust to deal with the Medicare program, Florida voters side with Obama over Mitt Romney by a 15 percentage-point margin.

By a 65 to 29 percent margin voters favor keeping Medicare the way it is rather than switching to a system that would give seniors a fixed annual payment to help pay for private insurance.

Democrats have made Paul Ryan’s budget and its plan to move Medicare to a subsidized private insurance model a centerpiece of their campaign since Romney selected the congressman as his running mate. The debate over Medicare is a major issue in the November election campaign, especially in senior-rich Florida where November voters 65 and up make up more than a quarter of the state’s registered voters,

Eighty percent of those polled said the future of Medicare was either “extremely important” or “very important” in determining how they will vote in November.

In Florida, 70 percent of all voters say the Medicare system is working well — rising to 91 percent of the state’s seniors.

Tags | Barack Obama, Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicare, Mitt Romney, Washington Post