ROI NJ: It’s time to put patients first on health care costs
By Jeanette Hoffman, Patients Come First New Jersey’s Executive Director
In an era when Americans seem divided on nearly everything, a new national survey reveals something remarkable: when it comes to health care, patients across the political spectrum largely agree on one problem—health care simply costs too much.
A new Commonwealth Fund survey of more than 25,000 Americans found that roughly three-quarters identified either insurance premiums or out-of-pocket health care costs as the most important problem facing our health care system. Forty-two percent pointed to high insurance premiums, while 36 percent identified the costs patients pay when they actually receive care or fill a prescription, including deductibles and copayments.
Perhaps most importantly, this wasn’t a Republican problem or a Democrat problem. The survey found similar levels of concern among Republicans, Democrats and Independents.