The American Public on Health Care-The Missing Perspective - (Page 54)

“Medicare is an unsung hero… It controls costs better than most systems. The quality of care is good. People can rely on it. There is a lot to recommend it. I think we have to be realistic though that culturally—this may not be true in San Francisco but it is true in California and certainly true across the nation —we have a certain resistance to an entirely government-run health care system. There is something about that that runs counter to the American culture.” Daniel Zingale Senior Advisor to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Portability One key concern is the lack of portability: the ability to maintain one’s health insurance regardless of changing circumstances. Right now, most health insurance is tied to an individual’s place of employment. Leave the job, lose the health plan. A doctor in Detroit says, “Right now we have a ridiculous system: where you work, the size of the business you work for, and the type of business you work at determines what type of health care you have.” Portability receives very strong support, with more than three-quarters (78%) favoring the right to take their health care coverage with them when they leave a job. The CEO of a national non-profit organization says, everyone has to step up and understand that this is a shared responsibility.” The Role of Government Americans have definite ideas about the role that government should play regarding health care. Reflecting the public’s understanding of the power of information, a top priority is guaranteeing access to quality and cost data. Majorities strongly favor government involvement in requiring health care providers to publish their performance ratings and costs for procedures and services. The involvement of government in health care elicits strong views from the public. According to polls conducted by the Gallup Organization between 2001 and 2007, the public has consistently “I’m a really frustrated physician trying to practice under these circumstances where my patients go from having insurance, to a possible HMO to having no insurance.” The CEO of a national non-profit organization based in California says the current system places too much emphasis on an individual’s employment situation: “We do not have an absolute prescription of exactly how it has to look but it has got to involve government. It has got to involve business. It has got to involve individuals. It has got to involve the health care system and 54

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of townhall

townhall

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.