Health Care: Satisfaction Rates

Kevin Drum blogs about a new study from some Harvard policy folks looking at satisfaction rates for heath care in our country and elsewhere.

Interestingly enough, the study finds that the poor and the elderly are, by and large, much more satisfied with their health care experiences than everyone else.

Drum's conclusions:

It's hard to know what to say about this. Americans in general are highly dissatisfied with their healthcare system — the one that's supposedly the "best healthcare in the world" — and yet they've been conned into thinking that a national healthcare system would be even worse. This is despite the fact that people in America who are enrolled in a national healthcare system (most of whom have previous experience with private employer programs) like it better than the working stiffs who have private coverage. What's more, people in other countries that have national healthcare systems report much higher satisfaction levels than Americans do.

Now, I do take issue with the study, since it uses "customer satisfaction" rather than more objective health measures. The elderly and the poor may very well just have different expectations of health care than everyone else, and that could easily explain away any confident conclusion. The "everyone else" category in America expects to receive the best health care in the world. The poor and the elderly, possibly more used to government assistance, aren't quite so hopeful of their treatment. Maybe.

However, a point's a point, and I think this paper makes a pretty decent one that shouldn't be entirely ignored, even if it's ship isn't the most sea-worthy.

The debate really comes down much simpler than this. National healthcare reduces overhead. Dramatically. Absurdly. For real. So the question becomes: can the money saved in overhead translate into better, more equitably distributed health care?

With competent administration, the answer is certainly yes.

But competent administration. Easier said that done.