The problem with fixing health care in the United Stares is few people understand the system – or lack thereof. Many people think it can be managed like any other commodity, that patients can be consumers, that more choice is good, that insurance companies are bad, that it can actually be free and that freedom of choice does not affect costs. Many people equate cost with quality and more care with better care.
Finally, when you tear it all down, you find that no one thinks they should use their hard earned money to pay for their health care.
Read the poll responses below and it is clear Americans don’t understand much about the health care system
Excerpts from an article appearing on fiercehealthcare.com
New polling suggests voters would rather work to improve the current U.S. healthcare system and keep the Affordable Care Act in place, rather than drastically overhaul the system in favor of a national public option or Medicare for All.
Reject Medicare for All, but make it available sooner?
Fixing the current system? Let me count the ways that have been tried.
Don’t want to start fresh with Medicare? Yikes, Medicare is here and already provides insurance for nearly 66,000,000 Americans and growing daily.
Three-quarters of survey respondents said they prefer fixing the current health insurance system versus starting fresh with a Medicare for All system, while 64% said Medicare should begin at the age of 60 instead of 65 and 58% believe people should be allowed to purchase health insurance beginning at the age of 50.
No universal insurance system, but repeal ACA🤔
Repealing the ACA struck a chord with respondents as just 32% of voters and only 44% of GOP voters said they support repealing the ACA. When asked if ACA subsidies should be extended, 60% said they should while only 41% of Republicans agreed.
Notably, the survey was conducted on behalf of the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, an industry group created in 2018comprised of America’s Health Insurance Plan, the American Hospital Association, BlueCross BlueShield Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, PhRMA and other major hospital systems, payers and healthcare advocacy groups that seek to quell support and prevent passage of Medicare for All. In 2021, the group spent $80,000 lobbying members of Congress on the issue.
The American Medical Association left the coalition in 2019 but does not support a national public option.
One basic problem is too much choice and a national option would exacerbate that problem.
Still, 44% of swing voters polled support Medicare for All and 47% support a public option, while 47% of respondents believe a new Medicaid Coverage Gap Plan should be created in states that chose to not expand Medicaid.
Don’t know what we want
Support for these proposals shrunk when directly polled one-on-one against building upon the current healthcare system. Just 29% prefer a public option to strengthening the current system, and 39% believe lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 60 is the correct decision as opposed to improving the status quo.
Voters said they are concerned about the government’s ability to manage access to care, as well as the cost and long-term fiscal impacts of any public option proposal.
“A growing majority of likely voters would be unwilling to pay more for healthcare or in taxes to fund the creation of a public option,” the report’s key findings said. “A majority would be less likely to vote for a lawmaker who supports creating a new government-run health insurance system funding by higher taxes or cuts to doctors and hospitals.”
Haven’t we learned by now that health care does not function in a free market? Nope, we haven’t😢
Of the 2,000 respondents polled, 61% said they trust the free market more than the federal government to manage healthcare, a 7% increase since May 2023.
The online poll was conducted by strategic advisory firm Locust Street Group (LSG).
Decades of experience, endless strategies and plans should have demonstrated that if we want fairness in health care, universal coverage paid for through taxes, premiums and out of pocket costs on an ability basis, we need a Medicare for All approach- and no I’m not talking about a Bernie Sanders pipe dream style.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
I love it!! A poll is shown which asks folks about Medicaid Coverage Gap Plan, as one example, and who thinks people know anything about that. People, who we are told know nothing about Medicare, are polled.
Most polls I assume ask questions about a topic folks know something about like the price of goods and services–or “are you satisfied with your current health care”. And then we are told some folks paid $80,000 to lobby Congress. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to so many other groups that lobby. Heck, some Tesla models are coming close to that.
Again, health care does not seem to be on the radar screen of most of us, but the big government folks will never give up. Of course we are too ignorant to know what’s in our best interest.
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Here we go again–“fairness in health care”–didn’t you forget diversity/equity/inclusion? You probably believed Obama when he told you you could keep your doctors and maximum cost would be $2,500–let’s fix the current Medicare system before we hear of expanding it to those age 50 or 55–I wonder why health care does not function in a free market–maybe when your competition mandates we all participate and pay that might have something to do with it.
SS is broke by the end of the decade we are told–Medicare is probably already broke and your solution is big govt. running the health care for all of us–the same folks who can’t manage it now have the audacity to tell us they want to inflict the rest of the country with it. Seems par for the course for you!
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The great majority of Americans do not use Obamacare and it has nothing to do with doctors. That is determined by insurance company networks in or out of Obamacare. The only fully free access plan is Medicare. Obamacare never saved money and never could except for those who receive subsidies which is part of the unfair part. Obamacare expended coverage but not much else. The larger a risk pool the greater stability. Medicare works fine, it’s underfunded and could do better controlling fraud.
SS cannot go broke, minor changes in funding will easily bring it back to full sustainability.
What is your suggested solution to health care so every American has an equal level of coverage, equal access and paid for based on ability to pay? I await your solution.
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Do I have a solution? NO! Why should I? Seeing my doctor and him telling me I have an issue doesn’t mean I can solve it. That’s what I pay him for? If I get poor health care or poor anything I can make decisions to try and improve it like going to another physician.
I do know that the SS and Medicare have major funding issues which of course should not surprise anyone. Can they “solve” the issue? Well, if you have the power to tax and print $ then of course you can have stopgap “solutions”. But, if history is any guide we will be right back to discussing this problem in “X” years.
Now, you could model a program like Medicare Advantage–give vouchers to folks and allow them to shop for their medical care. We give Pell Grants and students shop–we give food stamps, and you can go to Kroger or Whole Foods–Section 8 housing and folks shop for available living quarters.
Remember when Bernie’s state of Vermont was going to implement health care for all? That’s right, it backed out at the last minute because it was too expensive. Bernie couldn’t even do it in his own backyard.
Now we hear that Obamacare never saved money but expanded coverage. Was that what we were told at the time of inception? Politico called it the lie of the decade–I wonder why?
I am no expert but when you have programs that suck up $ and are a step away from major financial issues I am not inclined to give you more resources to screw up. When I was lied to by the Obamacare folks why should I believe the next big idea you have.
I have seen the issues that are on the radar screen of voters and health care is not there. Now, you can argue that one reason is Medicare–folks like it but there are financial issues that can’t be overlooked.
Solutions I have few if any–but my wife’s car had a hiccup the other day and I have no solution to that either.
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As I have said before, Americans do not understand how health care, health insurance, even Medicare work. Your comments again support that.
Choice does not work, shopping for health care as a consumer does not work, nothing we have ever tried assures universal coverage and that results in cost shifting to others. Patients can’t even evaluate the quality of care they receive.
Programs suck up dollars because we spend the money, we want more care and what we perceive as better care.
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You assume folks are ignorant or stupid–I shop for health care–not difficult for me or others to shop for doctors or dentists–I have 2 magazines in the other room that rate doctors and dentists in my metro area based on patient evaluation–how do you buy any product–I thought we had universal coverage with Medicaid for the poor–never knew there was a widespread problem with folks being told to leave the ER if they had no insurance–having only “A” and private insurance I, like millions of folks, pretty much know how the system works–I can go out of network (not a PPO) or find someone within the system–I pay about 25% in the former and basically nothing in the later–having a minor procedure done tomorrow–insurance company says the doctor must used the hospital which is in network–insurance company reimburses the doctor and I will pay the rest–hospital will have cost no doubt but I will have most of it picked up by insurance.
“patients can’t even evaluate the quality of care they receive”–let’s see now–I come home tomorrow and things seem fine or maybe they don’t–so I can’t assess my quality of care–what should I look for? — what should my check list include?
my good friend; people are not stupid–they can do a pretty good job of self-evaluation–I guess we need to model our health care on the great success of VA hospitals.
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