A poll done by the Commonwealth Fund finds that Americans who have a chronic illness, or other serious health problems, are likely to have medical debt. It also found gaps in how health care is coordinated in the United States, and gaps in the access Americans had to health care.
The Commonwealth Fund has a report that came from data found in a survey that was done by Harris Interactive, (and contractors that were within foreign countries). Some of it was done in the form of a poll. The poll included 18,000 adults in the United States, and in ten other “high-income” countries.
The results showed that Americans were the most likely to have problems getting the health care they needed. This is either because of the cost of the health care, or, because of medical debt.
The United States spends more on health care than any other country. Yet, according to Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis, America “stands alone when it comes to people with illness or chronic conditions having difficulty affording health care and paying medical bills”.
Researchers did a telephone survey in 2011. It included people who said that they were in fair health, people who said they were in poor health, people who had surgery, and people who had been hospitalized in the past two years. It also included people who had been treated for a serious or chronic illness or injury in the past year.
Out of the 1,200 adults with health problems who are in the survey, 42% of them said they went without health care because of the costs. More than 25% said that they couldn’t pay, or had serious problems paying, medical bills.
The survey also asked the same questions to adults with health problems in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. In those countries, the amount of people who were going without health care because of costs ranged between 1% and 14%.
51% of American adults who had health problems, and who were under the age of 65, went without health care because of costs. Only 19% of Americans who had health problems, who were 65 or older, and who were covered by Medicare insurance, went without health care due to costs.
Less than 10% of the adults from France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom said that they paid more than $1,000 in medical costs last year. More than one-third of the Americans in the survey said that they had paid more than $1,000 in medical costs in the past year.
Reports done by the Commonwealth Fund were used by lawmakers and politicians who are interested in healthcare reform. One can assume that this new report will be as influential as the previous ones have been. The information used in this report could, potentially, be used to make changes to the health insurance offered to Americans.
Image by Steven Depolo on Flickr