How often do you see a poll where 95% of the respondents agree on an issue? That’s the percentage of the more than 26,000 people recruited to take an online survey about health care in America, who believe that our health care system needs fundamental and major changes. Most of the respondents have jobs, a college education, and health insurance. Yet even though they were mostly insured, the vast majority saw major flaws in how the American health care system works.
The current political administration takes the position that America has “the best health care system in the world, pure and simple.” And yet 95% of the survey respondents said that “health care in America needs fundamental change or to be completely rebuilt.” 95% is a pretty convincing majority. It means that people of all races, economic backgrounds, and political persuasions are seeing flaws in the current system. They may not all agree on HOW we should go about overhauling health care in America, but just about all of them agree that we need to do something.
Perhaps the 5% who think that American health care should just keep on keeping on are members of the highly paid upper management in our various for-profit health care industries. I’m hopeful that the next administration will make health care reform a priority, and focus on the needs of all Americans, rather than the wishes of the lobbyists with the deepest pockets.
