Daily Research News Online no. 2122 - American View on Health Insurance

American View on Health Insurance

January 22 2003

While between a fifth and a third of Americans with health insurance are unhappy with their own health plans (depending on which plans, and which measures of unhappiness are used) most people continue to be satisfied with their health insurance according to Harris Interactive. This is true with employer-provided plans, health insurance which is bought by individuals and families, Medicare and Medicaid.

It is important to contrast these generally positive attitudes to people's own health plans and their more negative attitudes to managed care in general. Many other surveys have shown that people feel much more positively about their doctors, their members of Congress, their local communities and their local schools than they do about doctors, congressmen, society and schools generally. Clearly, many people who are satisfied with their own health insurance are critical of health insurance and managed care in general. Harris believes that these differences reflect the difference between personal experiences and the impact of negative media reports. The personal experiences of the public with their own health plans are not nearly as bad as their beliefs about health insurance and managed care, which in many cases come from what they see on television, in films or read in magazines and newspapers.

While levels of satisfaction have not changed much between December 2001 and December 2002, there have been some changes. Specifically:

Those with employer-provided insurance who give their plans very poor grades (D or F) have increased from 8% to 13%, the highest number have recorded over the four years that Harris has asked this question.
However, marginally, more people with employer-provided insurance give their plans an A (up from 26% to 29%) and they are also more likely to 'definitely recommend' their plans to both healthy (up from 33% to 40%) and sick (up from 32% to 38%) friends.

In other words, satisfaction has polarized somewhat with more people giving their employer-provided plans strongly positive or strongly negative ratings. However, the latest numbers are very close to what they were two years earlier in December 2000.

While the health insurance and managed care industry can derive some comfort from these numbers, there is much room for improvement. Both employer-provided and directly purchased health insurance score worse than Medicare and about the same as Medicaid.

This Harris Interactive survey was conducted by telephone within the United States between December 12 and 16, 2002 among a sample of 949 insured adults (18+).

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.