Consumers seem interested in separating health insurance from employment
A recent Wall Street Journal/ Harris poll shows that consumers are supportive of separating employment status from healthcare.
Sixty-nine percent of Democrats and 55% of Republicans believe the U.S. health-care system could be improved by creating an insurance program that isn’t linked to individuals’ employers. Only 6% of those polled disagree strongly with that proposal, while 21% said they aren’t sure.
And this would seem to make sense in an era where changing jobs occurs relatively frequently, and most people are not employed by large organizations and therefore are not certain to find group coverage. As I’ve explored in a previous article, the employers providing health benefits are not doing it because they gain great benefits in optimizing the health of their employees.
However, despite the poll’s headline “Americans want leaders to address coverage for uninsured” the data within the poll shows that Americans do not care strongly about changing the system, which means that little is likely to happen when hard choices need to be made. As marketers will tell you, people who do not feel strongly about an issue are unlikely to actually push for change.
In the data presented below, it is clear that only up to ~1/3 of those responding actually felt strong agreement with any of the statements, and this is in the absence of any hard choices or trade-offs. As we’ve seen with health proposals in the last few decades, the details of those proposals are likely to drain support from different factions as compromises are made.
