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26,000 Share Top Health Concerns in AFL-CIO Survey |
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In Veneta, Ore., Dorene relies on a unique form of health care coverage. The laid-off manufacturing worker, whose job was shipped overseas in 2006, says she is:
on the faith-based health care system. I pray I don’t get sick. Oh yeah, I’m a cancer survivor and I haven’t done the yearly check-up in three years.
Dorene counts on prayer for her health care because she and the nearly 27,000 other men and women who took the AFL-CIO/Working America 2008 Health Care for America Survey have lost faith in the nation’s health care system. The survey, released today, is one of the largest opinion pools available on health care. Of those who took the survey, nearly 7,500 submitted personal stories. The survey and stories are available at www.healthcaresurvey.aflcio.org.
How broken is America’s health care? Ninety-five percent of those who took the online survey—released today, click here—say it needs fundamental change or to be completely rebuilt.
For the uninsured, the system’s failures strike hard.
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In the past year, 76 percent of people who lack insurance themselves and 71 percent of people with uninsured children say someone in their family did not visit a doctor when sick because of cost.
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Sixty-seven percent of the uninsured and 66 percent of those whose children are uninsured report skipping medical treatment or follow-up care recommended by a doctor.
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Fifty-seven percent of the uninsured and 61 percent of people with uninsured children had to choose between paying for medical care or prescriptions and other essential needs (such as the rent or mortgage and utilities).
The respondents include union members and those without unions, young and old, insured and uninsured. The AFL-CIO will present the results of this survey to candidates for public office at every level and increase its mobilization to help ensure that candidates who win in November go into office with a mandate for real health care reform.
The often heart-wrenching personal stories submitted tell of skipping medical care because of the cost, or of seeing loved ones becoming seriously ill and sometimes dying because they couldn’t afford proper care. Even those with health insurance relate horror stories in which insurance companies deny coverage or they are unable to afford the increasingly costly deductibles, co-payments and premiums. (Click here to read the stories.)
During the past several years, much has been written about the health care problems of the nation’s uninsured—now some 47 million people. What is particularly striking about those who took the AFL-CIO survey and who expressed such deep dissatisfaction about the health care system is that most are insured and employed. Most are college graduates and more than half are union members.
Health care will be a major issue in the 2008 presidential and congressional campaigns, say 79 percent of respondents and 97 percent say they do plan to vote this fall. To learn more about the AFL-CIO’s efforts for affordable, quality health care for all, click here.
Tonight, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will hold a conference call with several hundred of the survey’s respondents who have volunteered to become health care activists to help fix the health care system and Turn Around America.
Says President Sweeney:
We have to help candidates who support real reform become active champions for health care. And we have to expose and hold accountable candidates at all levels who oppose real reform and propose false solutions.
The survey found the health care woes working families face today are part of the larger economic problems confronting them. Eighty-three percent of the respondents say their families have just enough to get by or are falling behind and 84 percent fear their children’s standard of living will be worse.
That economic angst is reflected in their concerns about health care coverage. Of those who took the survey, 77 percent are in insured families. Of that group, 78 percent get their coverage through work, 20 percent through Medicare, 15 percent purchase their own insurance and the rest through various methods.
Some 96 percent of insured respondents say they are concerned about being able to afford coverage during the next few years. Even today, 94 percent say they are dissatisfied with the cost of their current coverage, with 61 percent saying their costs have gotten worse.
As cost grows, the quality of health care seems to slip, and 62 percent say they are dissatisfied with their health care quality. In addition, more than half of those with coverage say it does not provide, or makes unaffordable, vital health services such as prescription drugs, preventive care and checkups.
Among other survey findings:
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Forty-six percent of all respondents say their out-of-pocket health care costs last year were between $1,000 and $5,000, while 17 percent of those with health coverage shelled out more than $5,000.
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Seventy-one percent of the insured worry about losing coverage because they may lose or change jobs.
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Almost half overall (48 percent) and 60 percent of Latinos say they have or a family member has stayed in a job to keep health care benefits when they would have preferred changing jobs.
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People of color, including 75 percent of African Americans and 76 percent of Latinos, are especially likely to voice dissatisfaction with health care quality.
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Large majorities in all age groups—from 74 percent among 18- to 29-year-olds to 80 percent among 50- to 64-year-olds—consider health care a very important voting issue for the 2008 elections.
Survey respondents were asked what advice they would give lawmakers and candidates about fixing the health care system. They called for coverage for all and for letting doctors make medical decisions, not insurance companies. They especially noted that most of those decision makers responsible for letting the nation’s health care system collapse for so many working families enjoy the kind of quality and comprehensive coverage that most of us don’t. One respondent wrote:
Let’s catch up with the rest of the world and adopt a universal health care plan and insure everyone. Let’s make health care a human right like it should be.
While another noted:
Americans deserve health care for all. Our elected officials have some of the best health care available, while their constituents suffer. We are in a health care crisis, and the citizens of other countries far surpass us in the quality of care they get.
Join the national fight to protect health care for those who have it—and to provide secure health care for those who don’t. Click here.
You also can find state-by-state breakdowns from 18 states here.
7 Comments
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I looked at the summary of the survey, truth is nothing in the way of new reading..
Interesting points were 90% of people taking survey were “willing” to sign a petition. (going to take more than a petition to get the ball moving).
72% were willing to email a friend or elected official (hope you get a response from the elected offical that has purpose and replies to your concerns of health care in the letter, not just a thank you for writing form letter.) As for emailing a friend, get a group of friends, neighbors and have a SiCKO party/screening. Then you have more people to write to the elected official(s). That movie gets you pumped up for doing more than signing a petition.
61% are willing to visit or write an elected offical. When a recess is coming, be sure to call the local office and get an appointment ASAP. The elected person may have an agenda set up already.
I was pleased to see the following survey taker comments on
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO ELECTED OFFICIALS AND CANDIDATES ABOUT AMERICA’S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM?
“Let’s make health care a human right like it should be”
“…You cannot have a for-profit health care system….”
Bottom line the candidates and elected officials (on the insurance industry “payroll”) are supporting a health care system that includes the for-profit companies… what change will occur?
HR 676 is the solution, single payer publicly financed, privately delivered health care system using the existing Medicare program and expanding and improving it to all US residents. Private health insurers would be prohibited under this act from selling coverage that duplicates the benefits of the USNHI program. (The United States National Health Insurance Act)
OK National AFL-CIO…27,000 took the survey and gave info that all America knows..what are you going to do? Whose health care plan do you endorse?
I along with the other 26,999 want to know.
TrueDemocrat -
Bingo, you hit it right on the head! The solution is HR 676. Now it’s time for the national AFL-CIO to endorse the bill.
In addition to the 27,000 survey respondents, thirty-three State Feds. have endorsed HR 676. So have over 350 other labor groups, including about twenty national unions.
90 courageous, responsive House Democats are co-sponsorng HR 676.
Numerous faith-based and community organizations have endorsed HR 676.
It’s time for the AFL-CIO to catch up with the rank and file. Endorse HR 676! It is THE answer!
This so-called Conference call last night featuring Pres. Sweeney and his staff spent the 1st half hr. going over a summary of the results of the survey, something those on the call could have done on their own.
Roughly 4-6 questions were taken (submitted earlier by those partaking in this yawner), single payer was mentioned once and quickly. Sweeney talks about meeting with corporate America to discuss health care. Aren’t these the fools that want to cut benefits?
He talks about supporting a single payer plan but ventured off with reducing costs of health care and negotiating with the insurance companies and Big Pharmas.
The AFL-CIO just doesn’t get it. Talking to the candidates should be in the tune of if you want OUR support and PAC money, then this is what we want! (single payer). Let’s not wait to see after the elections because WE already know what the candidates are offering; mandates!
It was interesting, I felt I was the only one on the line as I listened to Sweeney and company. I wanted to blurt out SUPPORT Single payer health care to see if anyone else would respond.
Something tells me there were filters to prevent this. It was a yawn party.
Amen to the above. Private insurance is a rotten way of financing health care. We don’t need more hard-luck stories (poignant as they are), we need some hard analysis of WHY this is happening and what will be required to fix it. We don’t need universal coverage, We need universal CARE.
An additional political problem–if we’re going to ask union members who have halfway decent health benefits in their contracts now to give it up, we’d better offer an alternative that works. Piecemeal solutions do not address rising costs and therefore resolve nothing.
I realize that compromises are generally the name of the game in politics, but this is one of those instances where half measures are actually worse than nothing. Why is a presumably progressive, pro-labor candidate like Hilary Clinton supporting a regressive measure like individual mandates (i.e., requiring everybody to buy health insurance like we’re required to buy car insurance)?
We should be demanding that politicians who want our help be willing to support HR 676.
“Universal” has been taken out of context. Just like the pinheads that claim single payer is “socialized medicine”.
Mandated health care may have a good ending. If you don’t buy insurance as mandated, you can go to jail and get all the health care services there!
As for half way decent health care through negotiating your contract, single payer, HR 676 will cover you for everything.
check out http://www.healthcare-now.org
It is informative and has a link to Rep. Conyers’ bill.
American Labor has grown too timid, too conservative, too gullible, and too frightened.
Sweeney needs to be told “we demand HR 676″ !!!!!
By the way….if HR 676 was the law of the land, corporate America wouldn’t be able to use health care costs as an excuse for moving American jobs offshore, or as a hammer to wrest consessions from U.S. workers. No wonder corporate America hasn’t jumped on the HR 676 bandwagon! (And neither does corporate CEOs want to screw their Ivy League counterparts in the for-profit health care industy.)
If the AFL-CIO refuses to endorse HR 676, the leaders will be more than chumps…they’ll be highly suspect!
The timid, conservative, gullible and frightened have to get the hell out of the way so the rest of us can have the kind of health insurance we need to stay alive.
It is literally a matter of life and death! We do not want excuses. We just want health care for everybody!
This survey makes an important point, that “underinsurance” is widespread. It shows just the tip of an iceberg that encompasses millions of people, if not all of us. Surveys conducted by a number of other organizations (e.g., Commonwealth Fund, Families USA) have shown widespread concern over the availability of affordability health care, along with skimping (and skipping) on medical care because of its cost. My view, having looked at all this data, is that the truth is that we are all underinsured — we just may not know it until we actually get sick.
As your summary, and various commentaries point out, proposals that simply leave private insurance as it is now are completely inadequate. It is not just the uninsured, it is the underinsured, who suffer under the present system, and proposals that claim to address the problem of the uninsured, without all considering those who are underinsured, are completely inadequate and will fail to make any significant improvement in our health care system.
We need a single national nonprofit fund — a “single payer” — that will be able to cover everyone reliably while greatly reducing the administrative waste in our present system.
Thank you for continuing to push forward on this issue.