The American Public on Health Care-The Missing Perspective - (Page 40)

A Tale of Two Health Care Systems: Mine Versus Ours Most Americans are aware of a distressing discrepancy between the excellent health care accessible by some and the poor care available to others. A San Francisco man sees the inequity within his own family: “It’s tough knowing that my sister doesn’t have health care right now.” An electrician who has excellent health insurance through his union realizes that most Americans are less fortunate than he is. “It’s a very comprehensive plan, but I know that that’s not the case for probably the majority of Americans,”he says. More than three-quarters of Americans (77%) express positive views about the quality of their own health care, with 37% rating it as excellent and 40% saying it is good (see Figure Z ). At the same time, two-thirds (65%) consider access to care for the uninsured poor (36%) or only fair (29%). In the metropolitan areas where the town hall meetings were held, survey respondents gave much lower ratings to the access to care for the uninsured in their communities. Some regional differences are apparent: Southerners are more likely than those in the Northeast to say access for the uninsured is poor in their area (41% vs. 30%). This duality is consistent across the country. In San Francisco, of those who have insurance, 80% are pleased with the quality of their own health care, yet nearly as many (75%) say access to health care in their area is poor or fair. The same holds true in Miami, where people are just as likely to rate their own care as excellent or good (77%) as to say that access to care for the uninsured is only fair or poor (75%). In Detroit, a city hit hard by the recent economic downturn, people report slightly lower quality ratings of their own health care (72% excellent or good) and slightly higher negative ratings for access to care for the uninsured (83% fair or poor). A woman from Florida coins a phrase that captures the dichotomy: “The health care in the United States is a tale of two systems. We have the best at the high end, and we have the worst at the low end for people who are uninsured. And that’s a big challenge that needs to be addressed.” 40

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