Health Care Consumer Confidence

Abstract

Welcome to Public Health Moment from the University of Minnesota. A relatively new tool to measure public confidence in access and affordability of health care shows that people are less confident now than they were when the health care reform bill passed into law in April. But University of Minnesota health policy professor Lynn Blewett says that, overall, the results show that Americans’ views on health care have remained stable over time. <Blewett: “You can really see changes and a lot of fluctuation over time, but our perspective was that the new data suggested that Americans have actually been remarkably even-keeled in their attitude towards the health care system. So, even with the turmoil of debate and all of the discussion we saw leading up to health care reform, that Americans are pretty confident with the health care system.”> Blewett adds that confidence could grow in the long term once more Americans are impacted by the changes. <Blewett: “It’s incremental change, so it’s based on our current system now and changing pieces of it, but it’s not like a full reform of our whole system. For most people, those small changes are not going to be felt in the near term. Hopefully, in the long term, there will be be better access, more affordable access. Whether that will be reflected in our polls, that’s kind of what we’re interested in seeing over time.”> For Public Health Moment, I’m Mark Engebretson.