SOURCE: Gallup Poll News Service
April 26, 2007
Prescription for Healing Healthcare From the People
The average American weighs in on how to fix healthcare
by Frank Newport
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ -- There is little question that from the people's perspective healthcare is a top problem facing the country today. When asked to name the most important problem facing the country and what should be the top priority for government today, healthcare, along with a group of domestic issues, is mentioned more frequently than any other issue except for the war in Iraq.
It's clear that when Americans today talk about problems with healthcare, they are mostly referring to the system by which Americans have access to healthcare and pay for it, rather than the ravages of any particular disease. Asked this past November to name the "most urgent health problem facing this country at the present time," half of Americans say it is either cost or access to healthcare. The next most frequently occurring response is cancer, given by 14% of Americans, followed by obesity at 8%.
So what can be done to fix the healthcare system? There is no lack of input in answer to this question, in part because there is so much money involved. Some estimates are that 16% of the economy is spent on healthcare, and that healthcare spending will rise to 4 trillion dollars by 2015.
Players with a connection to this extraordinary flow of money -- doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, businesses -- all mount intense lobbying campaigns to push the system in one way or the other to their benefit. Politicians also jump on the healthcare train in their campaigning, and healthcare already is and will continue to be an important issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.
A recent Gallup Panel poll asked American to indicate what they personally felt would be the best way to fix the healthcare system. The question was open-ended, allowing respondents to answer in their own words:
