Recent polls assess health reform
People’s perception of problems that affect the country, their assessment of their own current life situation, and their worries about their own future are the primary factors that shape public support for health reform change, according to an examination of 22 recent nationwide polls published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Among the findings are these:
- Requiring insurers to cover people with preexisting conditions, increasing taxes on people with higher incomes, and an employer mandate, have widespread public support.
- Introduction of a public plan as a competitor is supported in most polls, but respondents vary in their beliefs about how such a plan should function.
- There is widespread opposition to taxing employer-provided benefits and increasing the deficit to help pay for reform.
- The public is divided on an individual mandate, an increased role for government, and using Medicare savings to pay for reform.
- About half (47 percent) think that access to health care in the United States will expand if health care reform passes.
- About four in 10 (41 percent) believe the quality of care in the United States will improve.
- The public is divided on the question of how reform will affect health care costs nationally, with one poll showing a plurality thinking that cost growth will slow and another showing a plurality thinking that costs will increase.
- Most Americans do not think the current reform legislation will improve their own health care or lower their costs.
- More than three fourths believe that their own taxes will increase.
For more information, go to http://healthcarereform.nejm.org/.
Source: Spencer’s Benefits Reports
Reprinted with permission. © CCH
(Submitted Aug. 18, 2009)
<p>Recent polls assess health reform People’s perception of problems that affect the country, their assessment of their own current life situation, and their worries about their own future are the primary factors that shape public support for health reform change,</p>