U.S. confidence on healthcare spending rises: poll
A patient waits in the hallway for a room to open up in the emergency room at Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston, Texas, July 27, 2009.
Credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi
NEW YORK |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans are more optimistic about their ability to pay for healthcare services in the coming months, particularly for elective surgeries, according to a survey issued on Thursday.
That attitude could translate into an improvement for healthcare providers and medical companies after U.S. consumers cut back on health services in recent years because of the recession.
Companies from health insurers to medical device makers have assumed that patients will head back to the doctor's office in a significant way this year, but there has been scant evidence of that so far.
According to the Thomson Reuters Consumer Healthcare Sentiment Index, Americans were more confident they could afford healthcare in the next three months after reporting greater difficulty handling medical bills in the past three months.
"There seems to be a return to perhaps cautious optimism about the next three months," said Julie Shook, product director for the Healthcare & Science business at Thomson Reuters. "They are predicting a significant improvement in their ability to pay for and access healthcare services."
The Thomson Reuters Pulse Healthcare Survey polls more than 100,000 U.S. households annually on healthcare behaviors. The Consumer Healthcare Sentiment Index is based on responses from a survey subset of 3,000 respondents each month.
(For full report click: link.reuters.com/syb28r )
The index was launched in December 2009 with a baseline measure of 100. It fell to a low of 95 in July 2010, but regained ground to 98 in January 2011.
The component of the index that asks whether people are more optimistic about their ability to pay for healthcare in the future rose 3 percent in January compared to its level in December.
Shook pointed to elective surgeries -- which can include procedures that are medically needed but not urgent -- as an area Americans appear more sure they will not delay or cancel.
"Throughout 2010, elective surgery was the thing they were most likely to say they would delay or cancel," Shook said. "That apparently has turned around."
Conversely, Americans appear most likely to delay or not fill prescriptions in the months ahead, according to survey responses.
In the January results, respondents said that in the prior three months they had reached a high in difficulty in paying for healthcare, possibly as they focused spending on shopping for year-end holidays, Shook said.
"The three months just completed we had an all-time high in difficulty and that resulted primarily in them postponing or delaying filling, or not filling, prescriptions," Shook said.
(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
- Tweet this
- Link this
- Share this
- Digg this
- Reprints
Interesting how you would assign a private enterprise exploitation of a system Big Insurance and Big Pharma still control on Obama and the Left.
The healthcare crisis in America was long ago identified as one of the top threats to our economy…and disposable/discretionary income for the average American. No extra income = economic decline.
This threat has existed and has been perpetuated by the private system that extracts every possible dollar in the name of profit, not efficiency. The problem existed under Reagan & HW Bush, was highlighted under Clinton, and brushed aside by W…in spite of the looming reality.
Your healthcare premiums are precisely where they are because of the private system. ‘Obamacare’ as the Right Wing Death panel experts like to say, is the problem, but reality is far from this lie.
As big insurance has become less affordable, and as the rules were rigged in favor of insurance to drop the sick at will or not extend coverage to pre-existing conditions (gaming the system for profit not efficiency)…more Americans continue dropping coverage and using Medicare or Medicaid as the only affordable source for care, premiums for the rest of us will continue to rise so that big insurance can continue to ensure the share holders and executives will continue to grow fat on their enterprise AND we will need to find more tax revenue to cover the rest who cannot afford the private system…we are getting it both ways, as has been the case for a very long time.
A system that privatizes profit, and socializes the risk is not sustainable.
Whether we pay huge sums to the private system to socialize the risk, or pay into a government program to socialize the risk, the RISK is SOCIALIZED. I’d rather pay more in tax, like the majority of the industrialized world, and not fear bankruptcy at the hands of insurance or medical profiteers of the kind we know today.
Follow Reuters