Americans Support A Wide Range Of Health Coverage Options

With health care costs rising, around half of Americans are worried that their families will soon be unable to afford medical insurance or that their employers will make sharp cuts in their health care benefits, according to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive for the Wall Street Journal Online’s Health Industry Edition.

Of the 2,402 adults surveyed, 49% said they are very concerned that health insurance for themselves and their families will become so expensive that they will be unable to afford it, while 56% said they are worried that their current health care benefits will be substantially reduced or completely eliminated due to rising costs.

When asked for their views on proposals for expanding health care coverage, 74% of respondents said they favor requiring employers to provide health insurance for all their employees, 76% agreed that the government should offer a subsidized health insurance plan to individuals who do not have access to employer-sponsored benefits or existing government programs, and 76% expressed their support for tax credits or other government subsidies to help people buy insurance.

On the other hand, just 26% of respondents said they favor paying more in income taxes to cover greater numbers of people through the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Researchers noted that both uninsured respondents and respondents who receive employer-provided benefits expressed similar opinions about each of these coverage options.

Results further indicated that Americans are generally aware of the challenges faced by small businesses in providing health benefits to employees: More than two-thirds (67%) of respondents agreed that requiring all employers to offer health insurance to all employees could put many smaller employers out of business, while fewer than half (47%) said they believe the benefits of requiring smaller employers to offer insurance coverage to all employees outweigh the negative impact it might have on their businesses.

Commenting on the findings, Katherine Binns, president of health care research at Harris Interactive, noted that congressional Democrats and presidential candidates have recently put forward a variety of proposals for expanding health insurance to cover more of the uninsured. The survey results, Binns said, “suggest that the public is willing to back proposals that do not rely on big government or higher taxes.”