TMC PULSE

t m c » p u l s e | j u n e 2 0 1 6 32 A Turn in the Health Care Tide The TMC Health Policy Institute's second annual Consumer Health Report highlights changing perceptions on Medicaid and health B y S h a n l e y C h i e n T he second annual Consumer Health Report by the Texas Medical Center's Health Policy Institute (HPI) made its official public debut last month at the 2016 Medical World Americas Conference and Expo. The HPI collaborated with Nielsen Holdings Inc., a global information and metrics company, to conduct the web-based survey in January and February of this year to put a finger on the nation's pulse regarding views of the survey included the states' views on the politically charged topic of Medicaid expansion. In the two states surveyed that had rejected Medicaid expansion, 63 percent of Texans and 68 percent of Floridians were in favor of Medicaid expansion, while over 80 percent of those respondents from New York, California and Ohio, where states have accepted the expansion, want to keep it. Across all five states, approximately two-thirds of respon- dents agreed that the government should provide health insurance cover- age for all U.S. citizens, and each state showed similarly strong support for a candidate whose platform included expanding Medicaid. on the importance of health insur- ance coverage, quality of patient care, emergency room usage and obesity. Compared to the inaugural 2015 health report, which gathered 1,000 responses from only Texas residents, this year's report was more robust in its coverage, surveying 1,000 individuals from each of five states selected for their political breadth: New York, California, Ohio, Florida and Texas. One of the most surprising results "I think [the survey] keeps the issue of expanding Medicaid on the public agenda. It keeps elected officials concerned about working [toward] a proper stand for the state to take," said Stephen H. Linder, Ph.D., associate director of the HPI. "We thought, on the surface, that the responses would follow that division between those two groups, but as it turns out, the responses did not. In fact, the public responses not only looked very similar, but concern for coverage was uniform across all five of the states. We didn't expect that at all." While there are various alternatives for offering health insurance, such as expanding private health insurance, Medicaid expansion as a means of providing health care was the top choice—even in Texas and Florida, two states that also had the highest level of concern regarding the quality and cost of care. In fact, compared to last year's survey, there was a 50 percent increase in the number of Texans who thought Medicaid expansion was the best way to increase health coverage. "The vast majority of people have said that health insurance is vital to them and vital for everyone in the country to have," said Arthur Garson Jr., M.D., director of the HPI. "How we achieve that goal, and I personally agree with that, is going to have to be uniquely Texan and the people in Austin are going to have to wrestle with it. I hope that the data from this survey will be of some help." "There is a sense that the issue is closed and the time has passed, but these survey results say that's not the case in the public's mind—that the issue is very much alive and it is still very much a concern. It suggests, then, that more deliberation, more talk and more debate needs to happen because ACROSS ALL FIVE STATES, APPROXIMATELY TWO-THIRDS OF RESPONDENTS AGREED THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD PROVIDE HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR ALL U.S. CITIZENS.

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