American Public Hesitant of Health Insurance Trade – Offs

In Washington, a poll created by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health revealed that prospects for a health reform has dropped significantly due to the American public fearing potential financial trade-offs with expanding health insurance coverage.

An example of this is that the survey found that nearly seven in 10 people said they favour the concept of requiring employers to provide their workers with health cover or contribute into a fund that pays to cover the uninsured.

President - elect Barack Obama has called for such employer consent for large and medium sized businesses. However, asked what they would think if the mandate had to cause some employers to lay off workers, the support suddenly dropped to around three in 10 people.

Similarly, about two out of three people favoured a requirement for all Americans to have a health insurance policy. But when told some people may be expected to purchase insurance that is too expensive or it is something they do not want, support for the individual authorization feel to 19%.

Kaiser's Vice President Mollyann Brodie said: "As we have learned from past debates, public support looms for health reform largest at the beginning of the debate, but it's relatively easy to chip away at that support with arguments about trade-offs."

The current financial situation affecting health insurance
The researchers commented that the economy is the public's primary concern, with nearly three quarters of Americans worrying about the recession.

Health insurance too is a domestic concern, with the survey suggesting residents are split when it comes to willingness to sacrifice finically to get more people insured. 49% of consumers were not willing to pay higher insurance premiums, whereas 47% were.

These results send a strong message that "the economic crisis has created an unprecedented window of opportunity for health reform," said Drew Altman, president and chief executive officer of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy research group.

An increasing number of Americans believe the cost of health cover is a significant factor in their family finances and they desire the government to do something about it.

When asked to choose the most important thing President -elect Barack Obama and the new Congress could do, 30% labelled health insurance and health care to be more affordable as their top concern.

Other options included making health cover available to more Americans or providing higher quality care which received less support.

The study was based on a telephone survey of 1,628 adults conducted in December 2008.


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