Health insurance worries keep rising

[October 20, 2009]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of Americans worried about losing their current health care coverage keeps rising, even as President Barack Obama and a Democrat-led Congress strive to extend society's safety net to cover the uninsured, a new poll has found.

The growing levels of insurance insecurity are reflected in the latest monthly snapshot from the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Americans have conflicting views on whether a health care overhaul will help matters, make them worse or leave things about the same.

The foundation's September poll found that about one-third of Americans said they were worried about losing current coverage, a slight increase from 29 percent who reported such concerns the previous month.

Indeed, the share of Americans who say they're worried about losing coverage in the next 12 months has gone up by 11 percentage points since the health care debate began in the spring.

"Despite rising faith in the strength of our economy, people still feel financially pinched and increasingly concerned that they could lose their health care coverage and access to care," said foundation president Risa Lavizzo-Mourey. The nonprofit organization sponsors research and is broadly supportive of overhauling the health care system.

The worries about losing health insurance were greatest among young adults (40 percent), followed by middle-aged people (38 percent). But 29 percent of seniors also said they were worried, even though they have taxpayer-subsidized coverage through Medicare.

The foundation's health care confidence index -- a broad measure designed to gauge consumer attitudes about insurance coverage, affordability and cost- inched upward from August.

Americans are following the health care debate in Congress, the poll found. Some 55 percent said they are tracking it fairly or very closely. But they're not sure how much difference it will all make.

While more than 4 in 5 say dealing with health care is important in addressing the nation's deeper economic problems, most do not believe that the health care overhaul will affect them personally.

Fifty-five percent said they don't think their own access to health care will change, while 58 percent don't see an impact on family finances.

Among people who do think the health care overhaul will affect them personally, those who fear less access and higher costs outnumber those who expect to benefit.

The view shifts when the public is asked to assess how revamping the health care system will affect the country as a whole. In the end, it is still a mixed picture.

Thirty-nine percent say access to health care will improve, while 29 percent say it will stay the same, and 33 percent think it will get worse.

As for the country's finances, 38 percent say they think a health care overhaul will make things worse, while only about 35 percent see an improvement. Twenty-seven percent say it will make no difference.

The poll of 500 adults has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.4 percent. The survey was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 22.

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On the Web:

http://www.rwjf.org/healthreform/
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[Associated Press; By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR]

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