Americans are dissatisfied with the quality and cost of medical care
December 13, 2024
Summary: More Americans express dissatisfaction with quality and cost of health care now than at any point since the pollster started asking this question.
Source, Brenan, M Gallup.com December 6, 2024
The Gallup Organization reported last week that Americans’ opinion of the quality of U.S. health care has declined to its lowest point since they started asking this question in 2001. Only 44% of Americans say that quality of care in the US is “excellent” (11%) or good (33%). Survey respondents rate coverage more negatively than quality. Only 28% of survey respondents say that coverage in the US is excellent (6%) or good (22%).
Source, Brenan, M Gallup.com December 6, 2024
Respondents rated their own personal health care quality and coverage substantially better, although these metrics are on a downward trend, too.
Cost of care was named as the most urgent health problem facing the country most often (23%), followed by access (14%) and obesity (13%). This survey was of 1,001 diverse adults, and results were weighted to be representative of the U.S. population.
Implications for employers:
- This is further evidence of the widespread dissatisfaction with health care coverage.
- It’s heartening to see that more respondents were satisfied with their own health care coverage and quality, although many healthy people have few medical needs and may be less aware of the challenges facing the health care system.
- Employers can effectively communicate the large value their employees receive from covered health care benefits, design plans to minimize employee friction and deploy networks with adequate access.
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Monday: Rural and poor areas losing their local pharmacies
I recently made a 3 1/2 week trip to southeast Asia- Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, where most of the population is poor yet have a Buddhist view of life. Most of the people have very little in the way of resources for any of what the average American would call the necessities of life- including widely accessible, generally good quality health care yet are pretty content with their lives.
Coming back to the US, I diagnosed America with "expectation dysphoria". We expect way more than our society can reasonably provide at a cost that's not sustainable so we are nearly always unhappy and unfulfilled in so many areas of our lives.
We can do better with our health care system and I fully expect the next 5 -10 years will (a) bring transformational changes derived from rapid advances in big data and AI approaches to care, (a) embed technology innovation and common sense to improve the patient and provider experience and (c) adopt a more rationale approach to financing health care.
Until then, we need to understand where we are failing, improve care for the underserved and address the frustrations so many Americans feel.
I'll end with a link to the famous and prescient line from the 1970s movie Network that feels like it represents our current national mood.
"I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RujOFCHsxo&list=FLemKyHSXAYHI3aIrve48xSg
But anger and frustration is never an excuse for violence!