Poll: Many Americans report significant barriers to healthcare access
While a majority of Americans are satisfied with their healthcare coverage, costs and access, many remain dissatisfied with what they perceive as barriers to receiving adequate healthcare services, according to a new poll conducted jointly by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The poll—which surveyed more than 1,000 adults nationwide and more than 1,000 adults in Florida, Kansas, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin—asked respondents to report opinions on personal healthcare experiences as well as performance assessments of healthcare in each respective state.
Findings of the survey include:
- Thirty-three percent of respondents rated their health insurance coverage as “excellent,” with 41 percent rating theirs as “good.” One quarter of U.S. adults expressed dissatisfaction with their healthcare coverage, characterizing their insurance as fair (20 percent) or poor (5 percent).
- Nearly 74 percent of respondents have a regular doctor, one in four (25 percent) Americans does not.
- More than 15 percent of adults in the U.S. report having been in a situation where they were unable to obtain necessary healthcare services at least once in the past two years.
- While 60 percent of Americans are satisfied with the overall cost of healthcare, including premiums, deductibles, co-payments and prescription drugs, nearly 30 percent say the personal cost of healthcare is unreasonable.
- More than 34 percent of respondents also believe healthcare costs have become less affordable in the past two years, while one in five (22 percent) Americans feels the same about the cost of prescription drugs.
- More than one quarter of Americans (26 percent) reported serious financial problems for them or their family resulting from health care coss in the past two years, 40 percent of which reported spending all or most of their personal savings on medical bills.
“It is clear from the poll that health care costs should top the agenda for what needs to be done in the future,” said Robert J. Blendon of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, “especially in some states where more than a third of people have serious problems paying their bills.”
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