Poll: Majority of Americans Are Satisfied with Their Healthcare

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A report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and National Public Radio finds that most Americans are satisfied with their healthcare, but cost and access to care are still sticking points.

The poll, the results of which were released Monday, was meant to gauge how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has changed American medical care in the years it has been in effect. The researchers polled more than 1,000 people each from a group of geographically and politically diverse states: Florida, Kansas, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin. They asked respondents a series of questions about their own healthcare, and compared those results to answers from 1,000 people from states across the country.

Though the results varied somewhat from state to state, here are some of the most notable findings from the country-wide survey:

• Despite all the controversy, 56 percent of respondents said the ACA hasn’t had an impact on their healthcare, while 35 percent said it helped and 27 percent said it hurt residents of their state.
• The vast majority of respondents were satisfied with their healthcare: 33 percent rated it excellent, while 46 percent rated it good.
• In many states, people were more critical of state-wide healthcare than their own individual care. In Texas, for example, 30 percent felt their own care was excellent, but just 13 percent said the state’s system was excellent.
• Forty-two percent of adults said they spend all or most of their savings on medical care. Twenty-six percent said healthcare costs had caused their family a somewhat or very serious problem.
• Forty-five percent of those surveyed said their healthcare premiums have increased since the ACA went live, and 35 percent said deductibles and co-pays have gone up.
• A quarter of those surveyed do not have a regular doctor. Fifteen percent could remember at least one instance in the last two years when they needed medical care, but could not get it.