All Americans want more affordable health care
Kaiser Health Poll Report
January/February 2003 Edition
Health Care Priorities
When asked in an open-ended question to name the most important problem in health or health care for the government to address, people give a diverse list of responses.
Between December 2002 and February 2003...
When given a list and asked more specifically about the importance of health care issues that are actually before the President and Congress, large majorities (two-thirds or more) say each issue is "very important." When forced to choose the most important priority, four in ten (44%) chose making health care more affordable. Smaller shares chose helping people age 65 and over pay for prescription drugs (16%), increasing the number of Americans covered by health insurance (14%), making Medicare more financially sound for future generations (12%), and protecting patients' rights in HMOs and managed care plans (4%). In nearly all demographic groups, a plurality of people chose making health care more affordable as the most important issue.
http://www.kff.org/healthpollreport/hcp/media/hcp.pdf
Comment: In this February 2003 poll, 86% said that "making health care more affordable" is "very important," and this doesn't even include those that believe it is "somewhat important." Another recent poll indicated that the combined total of those that believe this issue is important is 98%. There are very few issues on which Americans demonstrate this level of agreement.
There is now a consensus that reform is needed. But other polls have shown that there is greater support for employment-linked insurance than for a universal public program. However, those polls have used pejorative phrasing ("tax," "government-run," etc.) which would provoke a negative response about a publicly funded and administered program.
Ironically, the public does not understand that what they are looking for in health care (affordability, cost containment, lower out-of-pocket expenses, adequate access to modern technology, equity in both funding and access, stability of coverage, choice of health care providers, etc.) would be achieved by adopting a universal public program that is funded at our current level of health care spending. The employment-linked model that they support is only going to compound their concerns since it continues to waste resources in administrative excesses, and it is shifting more and more of the financial risk to the individual, not to mention the other problems such as losing coverage with unemployment, etc.
When will the pollsters begin to ask honest questions about the policy implications of universal versus incremental models of reform? 98% of Americans want to know the answers now. Isn't it time to begin to ask the right questions?