Americans Dissatisfied With Healthcare, Want Lower Costs Even If It Means Sacrificing Quality, Survey

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 31 Oct 2008 - 6:00 PDT

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With the election just days away, a new survey by leading health Web site QualityHealth.com shows a vast majority of Americans are not satisfied with the current state of the U.S. healthcare system and are willing to put cost of care above quality of care. The survey, the ninth in QualityHealth.com's HealthOpin survey series, polled 10,025 registered site users between October 25 and 29, 2008.

When asked if they're satisfied with the current state of the U.S. healthcare system, 83 percent of survey respondents answered "no", moreover, 82 percent of respondents said they are concerned about their current or future ability to afford healthcare coverage.

When asked what the most important healthcare related issue is, 38 percent of survey respondents cited household's cost of care, 20 percent universal healthcare, 17 percent changes to Medicare and/or Medicaid, 14 percent access to quality care and 11 percent the quality of care they receive.

Survey respondents also narrowly leaned towards healthcare policies from Barack Obama's proposed healthcare plan. When asked about the presidential candidates healthcare policies, survey respondents reacted most favorably to the Obama plan policies of forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions (56 percent support) and lowering prescription drug costs by allowing the importation of safe medicines from other developed countries (49 percent support).

John McCain's proposed healthcare policies, however, did receive ample support, with 33 percent of respondents in favor of his proposal to reform the Medicaid and Medicare payment systems and 24 percent supporting his plan to have the government promote greater access to care through walk-in clinics in retail outlets.

As the ninth installment in its "HealthOpin" poll series, QualityHealth.com polled its database of registered members between October 25 and October 29, 2008, collecting responses from 10,025 consumers interested in health matters. Survey respondents were 89 percent female and 11 percent male, with the majority between the ages of 35 and 54. The survey's margin of error is +/- 3 percent.

About Marketing Technology Solutions

Marketing Technology Solutions (MTS), is a media and technology company specializing in servicing health consumers and advertisers through proprietary algorithms that simultaneously personalize health content and target advertising based on a unique healthographic™ consumer profile. Healthographics™ are a proprietary combination of demographic and (age, gender, address) and consumers physical and emotional health profile. Our healthographic profile has upward of 250 individual data points. MTS specializes in connecting clients' brands with health-conscious consumers through data-driven patient education, targeted customer acquisition, syndicated research, and permission-based interactive marketing. MTS gains consumer insights through its network of Web sites, QualityHealth.com, Healthpages.com and Nubella.com, whose 10 million members rely on the sites for health and wellness news, tips, tools, support groups, and patient education.

According to August 2008 comScore, Inc., the global leader of measurement in the digital world, QualityHealth.com, with approximately 6.4 million unique visitors per month, ranks 9th among the most visited health sites on the Web.

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