Lambert here: I think “fret” is a bit weak. How about “screamingly frustrated”?
By Noam N. Levey, a senior correspondent at KFF Health News. Originally published at KFF Health News.
Tom Zawierucha, 58, a building services worker in New Jersey, wishes candidates would talk more about protecting older Americans from big medical bills.
Teresa Morton, 43, a freight dispatcher in Memphis, Tennessee, with two teenagers, wants to hear more about how elected officials would help working Americans saddled with unaffordable deductibles.
Yessica Gray, 28, a customer support representative in Wisconsin, craves relief from high drug prices and medical bills that have driven her and her husband deep into debt. “How much are we going to pay?” she said. “It’s just something that’s always on my mind.”
Health care hasn’t figured prominently in this increasingly acrimonious presidential campaign. And the economy has generally topped the list of voters’ concerns.
But Americans remain intensely worried about paying for medical care, national surveys show.
Two in 3 U.S. adults in a recent nationwide poll by West Health and Gallup said they’re concerned a major health event would land them in debt. A similar share said health care isn’t getting enough attention in the campaign.
To better understand voters’ health care concerns as the 2024 campaign nears an end, KFF Health News worked with research firm PerryUndem to convene a pair of focus groups last week with 16 people from across the country. PerryUndem is a nonpartisan firm based in Washington, D.C., that studies public views on health care and other issues.
The focus group participants represented a broad swath of the electorate, with some favoring Republican candidates, and others Democrats. But nearly all shared a common complaint: Neither presidential candidate has talked enough about how they’d help people struggling to pay for medical care.
“You don’t really hear anything much about health care costs,” said Bob Groegler, 46, who works in residential financing in eastern Pennsylvania. Groegler said he’s worried he may never be able to retire because he won’t have enough money to pay his medical bills.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, hasn’t offered a detailed health care agenda, though he criticizes current laws and said he has “concepts of a plan” to improve the 2010 Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare.
Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, has laid out more detailed health care proposals, including building on legislation signed by President Joe Biden to lower patients’ bills.
In 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which limits how much Medicare enrollees must pay out-of-pocket for prescription drugs, including a $35 monthly cap on insulin. The legislation also provides additional federal aid to help Americans buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, though this aid will expire unless Congress and the president renew it next year.
Harris has said she will expand the aid and push for new assistance to Medicare enrollees who need home care. She also has pledged to continue federal efforts to relieve medical debt, a nationwide problem that burdens about 100 million people.
But most of the focus group participants said they knew little about these proposals, complaining that hot-button issues like abortion have dominated the campaign.
Many also expressed deep skepticism that either Harris or Trump would do much to lighten the burden of medical bills.
“I believe they’re out of touch with our reality,” said Renata Bobakova, 46, a teacher and mother outside Cleveland. “We never know when we’ll get sick. We never know when we’ll fall down or sprain an ankle. And prices really can be astronomical. … I’m constantly worried about that.”
Bobakova, who is from Slovakia, said she went back to Europe to give birth to her daughter 10 years ago to avoid crippling medical debt she knew she’d incur in this country. Parents with private health coverage face on average more than $3,000 in medical bills related to a pregnancy and childbirth that aren’t covered by insurance.
Other focus group participants said they or people they knew had left the country to get cheaper prescription drugs. The U.S. has the highest medical prices in the world, research shows.
Several focus group participants, such as Kevin Gaudette, 64, a retired semiconductor engineer in North Carolina, blamed large hospitals, drug companies, and insurers for blocking efforts to lower patients’ costs to protect their profits. “I think everybody has their finger in the pie,” Gaudette said.
Martha Chapman, 64, who is also retired and lives in Philadelphia, pointed to what she called “corporate greed.” “I just don’t think it’s going to change,” she said.
In the closing days of the campaign, that cynicism represents a particular problem for Harris, said PerryUndem co-founder Michael Perry, who led the two focus groups.
Harris has tried to distinguish herself as the candidate who is more serious about policy and more sympathetic to voters’ economic struggles, Perry said. And in recent weeks, she’s begun airing new ads highlighting health care issues.
But even focus group participants who said they lean Democratic seemed to blame both candidates for not addressing Americans’ health care concerns. “They’re not feeling listened to,” Perry said.
Many of the participants nevertheless continued to express hope that an issue as important as health care would someday get the attention of elected officials, regardless of political party.
“We’re all human beings here. We’re all people just trying to make it,” said Zawierucha, the building services worker in New Jersey. “If we get sick or have to go in and get something done, we should have that peace of mind that we can go in there and not have to worry about paying it off for the next 20 years.”
Experts in winning elections have decided that substantive discussions regarding such issues are less important than being for/against gender issues that impact 1% of the population.
ding ding ding. the Cultural Wars are the best thing to ever happen to oligrachs and global interventionist grifters.
The culture wars didn’t just happen to our global elite. They originated from them. They know that it behooves them to continually divide the masses no matter the blade that is used in the dissection.
It’s so cute that some voters think that politicians (both parties) talking about a problem while taking money from industry will lead to change.
Unless I hear a politician talk about removing the financial incentive – including regulatory capture – I stop listening to the sound of gas escaping from moving lips. RFK did but of course the system destroyed his ability to run (says something!)
I have a buddy who is on blood thinners. I think it’s called Xarelto. He is on medicare. His current 3 month supply costs $80. He tells me it is going to $400. I’ve heard other people who pay much less. I don’t get it.
How can they do that? Because they can, I guess. No wonder people are mad.
In spain It goes for 76€ / four weeks.
And half that in Kazakhstan.
I’m seeing $600/month for Xarelto, even with a good rx coupon. That is insane.
“Aspirin just as good as Xarelto for preventing clots after hip, knee surgery.” (https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/aspirin-just-as-good-as-xarelto-for-preventing-clots-after-hip-knee-surgery-idUSKCN1G52SI/#:~:text=Xarelto%2C%20made%20by%20Bayer%20Pharma,and%201%20percent%20getting%20Xarelto.)
Is Xarelta a lot better for other purposes????
A broad swath that manages to leave out 40%+ of the people — and, what a surprise, the focus group is so focused on the two gravy wings of the duopoly that it also manages to miss talking about candidates who support broad-swath full-spectrum single-payer health care for all. . . .
Can’t have that, no sir. The employer-based system is what keeps people chained to their jobs, and limits competition from small businesses.
The focus group participants represented a broad swath of the electorate, with some favoring Republican candidates, and others Democrats. But nearly all shared a common complaint…
Make that “complaints,’ plural.
Sure, we’re talking about voters in a focus-group here, but throw in most everyone else, and it becomes easy to remember that a lot of us citizens/subjects/residents of this country share the same concerns.
Of course, the ones who are making money off of our hardships sure don’t want our hardships to end: when butchering pigs, everything has value– even the squeel.
Keep the profits coming, deploy the politicians, divide-and-rule, baby!
Just wait until Obamacare starts working!
Well, in Obama’s defense, once one realizes that the “care” part of Obamacare is to help the American healthcare INSURANCE/HOSPITALS/PHARMA incorporated, not the American people (or the doctors, RNs, etc) then one sees that Obamacare is working great!
I still hear from my true blue friends how great that is. Amazing.
NotTimothyGeithner: Bravo. The perfect comment.
Then everyone will have a Bronze Plan with a 15,000 USD deductible! That’ll keep ’em healthy.
Back in the early days of the ACA, I spent a lot of time at Kevin Drum’s site which was turining into an HRC love site. I was complaining about how expensive my ACA policies were, and a commenter “just couldn’t believe that I was spending that much, you must be stupid poor shopper”
“Fine” I said. “Heres my age and zipcode, and non smoking status. You go find something cheaper’
“wow, I can’t believe it’s that expensive. You were right”
This problem was much pointed out at NC at the time. Depending on location, you either “went to happy land or painville.” And my zipcode was in painville.
Federal programs all have the same problem – one size doesn’t fit all, but he politicians in Congress think they do. So you get a $45K annual income cap for Obamacare premium subsidies, regardless of whether you live in Mississippi or California. A $45K income in most of California is a poverty level income, while in Mississippi it may provide a lower middle class lifestyle.
It’s the “price” of health care, not the “cost”. Health profiteers are scamming Americans and costing us our lives.