Trends in Access to Care Among Working-Age Adults, 1997-2006

This policy brief finds about 39 million working-age adults nationally reported cost as a barrier to receiving needed health care in 2006, a number that grew by an average of 1 million people annually over the decade studied. Uninsured working-aged adults experienced the most consistent erosion over the 10 years, resulting in a widening gap in access to care between insured and uninsured adults.

Policy Brief (.pdf)

2008 Update on Consumers’ Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information

An updated examination of consumers’ views on health care quality information reveals major challenges remain in providing the public with comparative quality information and encouraging its use.

The 2008 Update on Consumers’ Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information finds that three in 10 (30%) Americans say they have seen health care quality comparisons of health insurance plans, hospitals, or doctors in the past year. Not all people make health care choices or decisions in a given year that would call for the use of quality information, but this is a downward trend from surveys in 2006 (36%) and 2004 (35%) and roughly equivalent to the level in 2000 (27%). Further, just one in seven (14%) Americans report that they “saw” and “used” comparative health quality information for health insurance plans, hospitals, or doctors in the past year, again down from roughly one in five in both 2006 (20%) and 2004 (19%).

The report of consumer views on quality information was conducted in August as part of the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 series. The report draws on data from a set of questions related to consumer quality information that the Kaiser Family Foundation has asked since 1996, at times in conjunction with partners. The report also examines public opinion on the coordination of health care among different health care providers and steps the public has taken to better organize their own care.

The survey was conducted by telephone from July 29 to August 6, 2008, among a randomly selected nationally representative sample of 1,517 respondents 18 years of age and older. The margin of sampling error for the overall survey is plus or minus three percentage points. For results based on subsets of respondents the margin of error is higher.

Summary and Chartpack

Toplines

Florida Medicaid Reform Waiver: Early Findings and Current Status

This policy brief provides an overview of the Florida Medicaid reform and a summary of available research findings to date from various evaluators of the program.

It was issued at the same time as a separate Health Affairs article highlighting findings from Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2006-2007 Survey of Florida Medicaid Beneficiaries. The Foundation, in collaboration with the Urban Institute and the University of Florida, is conducting a follow-up survey in Florida to continue to track the experiences of beneficiaries in the reform program.

Policy Brief (.pdf)

2008 Update on Consumers’ Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information – Summary & Chartpack

This summary and chartpack provides an updated examination of consumers’ views on health care quality information reveals major challenges remain in providing the public with comparative quality information and encouraging its use. The 2008 Update on Consumers’ Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information is based on polling conducted in August among a randomly selected nationally representative sample of 1,517 respondents 18 years of age and older.

Summary & Chartpack (.pdf)

This policy brief examines the underlying shifts in health insurance coverage in 2007, which resulted in a 1.5 million decrease in the number of uninsured people under age 65, due to increased public coverage. This includes about 300,000 in Massachusetts, which implemented its comprehensive health reform that year. The brief also projects that the current economic downturn and rising unemployment rate likely will cause the number of uninsured to grow by at least 2 million in 2008.

Policy Brief (.pdf)

2008 Update on Consumers’ Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information – Toplines

These toplines provide complete survey questions and findings on the updated examination of consumers’ views on health care quality information reveals major challenges remain in providing the public with comparative quality information and encouraging its use. The 2008 Update on Consumers’ Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information is based on polling conducted in August among a randomly selected nationally representative sample of 1,517 respondents 18 years of age and older.

Toplines (.pdf)

As part of the September Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008, the Foundation asked the public what their view was of the recent evacuation process when Hurricane Gustav hit the Louisiana coast on September 1. New Orleans residents and the government bodies that aided them in their evacuation receive high marks for that effort from the American public. Asked to compare what they saw with the response to Hurricane Katrina, two thirds of Americans say that the federal government seems more prepared to handle a major hurricane now than it did in 2005. In addition, more than seven in ten say Louisiana’s state government and New Orleans’ city government and its residents also seem better prepared.

 Survey Brief: A Note on Hurricane Gustav (.pdf)

This document contains the topline from the September Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 poll. The poll involved a nationally representative random sample of 1,207 adults (including 1,081 who say they were registered to vote), who were interviewed by telephone between September 8 and 13, 2008. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points and plus or minus 4 percentage points for the sample of all registered voters. For results based on subgroups, the sampling error is higher.

Full Topline (.pdf)

This document contains the key findings from the September Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 poll. The poll involved a nationally representative random sample of 1,207 adults (including 1,081 who say they were registered to vote), who were interviewed by telephone between September 8 and 13, 2008. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points and plus or minus 4 percentage points for the sample of all registered voters. For results based on subgroups, the sampling error is higher.

 Key Findings (.pdf)

The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 finds that health care has crept up in importance as an election issue in recent months among a key voting group: political independents, who ranked it as highly as Democrats did in this poll.  Roughly one in four (26%) independents rank health care as one of the top issues they would “most like to hear the presidential candidates talk about.” Health care’s importance has risen among independents by eight percentage points since April.  At the same time, health care has dropped even further down Republicans’ priority list (now mentioned by 11%, a new low) and stayed roughly stable among Democrats (25%).

Amidst the collapse of some of the country’s financial institutions and the subsequent government interventions, the economy overwhelmingly ranks as one of the top issues voters want to hear about from the candidates, claiming a majority among independents (54%) as well as among Republicans (55%) and Democrats (59%). Iraq remains an important election issue for one in four voters overall (25%) and health care has returned to third place (21%) as gas prices have declined slightly as an issue (down from 25% in June to 19%). It should be noted that the poll reflects responses from September 8 through 13, before the worst of the financial crisis became public.

Recent economic events are having a real impact on Americans’ pocketbooks: More than six in ten say they are experiencing at least one “serious problem” from a list of specific economic challenges, up slightly from last month (63%, up from 58%).  The number of Americans reporting a serious problem “paying for health care and health insurance” rose six percentage points from just one month ago and now stands at 30 percent.

The September poll, the tenth in a series designed and analyzed by the Foundation’s public opinion research team, also examines the voters’ specific health care issue interests and perceptions of the major presidential candidates’ positions on health care and reform.

• Key Findings
• Topline
• Survey Brief: A Note on Hurricane Gustav