American Healthcare Consumers’ Opinions Regarding Healthcare Depends on the Questions Asked

American healthcare consumers are now responsible to pay a fine if they are not properly health insured. Initially, most Americans considered the idea of charging for being uninsured generally unfavorable. However, once realizing that health insurance is available through different outlets and that the mandate considered different consumers’ incomes and status’ of life; many respondents changed their opinion.

If a consumer has insurance available to them and still chooses not to participate, less respondents felt empathetic to those feeling the effects of the fine.

People were more favorable to the idea of a fine for those without health insurance once they learned that those who simply could not afford insurance would not be held under the same requirement; or that those who choose to bypass health insurance eventually drives up the cost for others.

The opinions of respondents also changed once they realized that insurance companies would be able to deny health coverage to those with previous ailments should such a mandate not be in place and that the fine would be around $300 or 2% of household income.

For those expecting the fine to be a lot greater, $300 may not seem detrimental. For those whom $300 will be detrimental, the balance of subsidies and the idea that they will not be held under such a mandate is in place.

Change is proving to be a learning process within the healthcare realm. Everyone is entitled to an opinion as well as change of that opinion.

Source 1: KaiserHealthNews.org (accessed April 20, 2015.)

Source 2: DiJulio, B., Firth, J., & Brodie, M. (2014, December 18). Kaiser Health Policy Tracking Poll: December 2014. Accessed April 20, 2015.

Advertisement