While corporations, researchers and government agencies are all committed, to a certain degree, to containing health care costs, the public remains absent from the conversation.
A Kaiser Health Foundation survey found that few members of the public have seen any sort of information addressing provider quality, and even among those who have seen it, very few take it into account when making health care provider and spending information.
This finding comes on the heels of recommendations for addressing cost disparities among markets by the National Academy of Social Insurance, which commented that the public's lack of engagement in evaluating services hinders efforts to level the cost of care across markets.
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Said Kaiser: "Only a small share of the public say they have seen quality information about health insurance plans (15 percent), hospitals (13 percent) or doctors (10 percent) in the past 12 months — and even fewer report using that information (6 percent for plans, 4 percent for hospitals and 6 percent for doctors). Similarly, relatively few people report seeing and using price comparisons involving plans (18 percent saw, 9 percent used), hospitals (6 percent saw, 2 percent used) and doctors (6 percent saw, 3 percent used)."
Further, when asked to identify their top health care priorities, members of the public overwhelmingly said they wanted assurances that costly specialty drugs would be readily available to those who need them.
Said the report: "The public's top health care priority overall (and across party lines) is making sure that high-cost drugs for chronic conditions, such as HIV, hepatitis, mental illness and cancer, are affordable to those who need them. Three-quarters of the public (76 percent) say this is a "top priority," including strong majorities of Democrats (87 percent), Republicans (66 percent) and independents (72 percent)."
In fact, such drugs are generally only "affordable" for many American budgets due to co-pays by insurers.
The focus of the survey was to find out how the public felt about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, now that it has been in pretty much full swing for a couple of years.
For the first time since the survey began, more folks said they felt positive about the act (43 percent) than negative (42 percent). Kaiser admitted that the difference wasn't statistically significant, but the word probably sent a thrill through the act's supporters nonetheless.
"As in the past, this poll finds sharp partisan divisions, with most Democrats viewing the law favorably (70 percent), most Republicans viewing it unfavorably (75 percent), and independents in between (42 percent favorable, 46 percent unfavorable)," Kaiser reported. "Most Americans (56 percent) say it has had no direct impact on their families, with similar shares saying the law has helped (19 percent) or hurt (22 percent) them. These results are similar to last month but reflect a narrower gap than recorded in earlier polling."
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
