A majority of Americans are satisfied with the health care they receive, but many still experience significant problems with healthcare costs, insurance coverage and accessing care when they need it, according to a new poll from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
A strong majority of adults reflect positively on their health insurance coverage, with 33 percent rating theirs as “excellent” and 41 percent as “good,” but one in four Americans rate their insurance as just fair (20 percent) or poor (5 percent), a news release from the T.H. Chan School of Public Health said in summarizing the poll. Poll findings can be found here: https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2016/02/Patients-Perspectives-on-Health-Care-in-the-United-States-National-Report-with-topline-Feb2016.pdf
More than a quarter of adults in the U.S. also say healthcare costs have caused serious financial problems for them or their family. Experiences among patients differ by state of residence, but as many as one in five adults in some states say they could not get the health care they needed at some point in the past two years, the release said.
The poll surveyed more than 1,000 adults nationwide and more than 1,000 adults in each of seven states — Florida, Kansas, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin — about their personal health care experiences and perceptions of the state in which they live.
Polling was conducted last fall, after an additional estimated 17.6 million people acquired health insurance in the United States.
