The Cost of Health Care Elicits Strong Reaction

New Yorkers have strong opinions about the state of health care, including cost, quality, and access issues.  Affordability, including coverage for the uninsured, is the clear priority for New Yorkers when it comes to health care, according the New York Matters poll. Forty-six percent chose the need for affordability as the top health care issue, followed by helping the uninsured get health care (28%), increasing access to medical care (14%), and providing quality health care (11%).

Nationwide, nearly two in five adults (38%) say they have had serious problems paying for their own or their family’s medical bills, and the same proportion reported serious problems paying for their own or their families health insurance in 2006.  But health care affordability and the related issue of health care costs mean different things to different people, as described in this report.

Voters would be well-served with more specific proposals from the gubernatorial candidates on health care issues, particularly those that affect individual and family pocketbooks in these days of rapidly rising health care costs. Click here to read the full report.