Health care costs a nagging worry for Detroiters

from the Detroit Free Press

Many rate quality good, poll finds

BY JOHN GALLAGHER

Like many metro Detroiters, Dyan Lacey digs a little deeper each year to pay medical bills that her insurance plan no longer covers.
Advertisement

"Our co-pays are going up and some of the coverages are taken away," Lacey, 35, a worker at General Motors' Pontiac Assembly plant, said last week.

She understands that as a UAW member, she enjoys first-rate health care. But with three children and retired in-laws for whom she helps pay for medication, Lacey is more worried than she used to be.

"I'm OK with paying a higher co-pay rather than not having insurance at all," the Detroit resident said. "At the same time, I'm a little nervous with the changes."

Nervous describes the attitude of a majority of metro Detroiters as they consider the cost and quality of their health care. A new poll reveals that solid majorities rank cost and availability of health insurance as big concerns.

The nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government, which conducted the poll, is to host a town hall meeting Wednesday on the future of health care. The meeting at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Patricia McGinnis, president of the Washington, D.C.-based council, said the poll and town hall meeting are part of a nationwide effort to make the public's voice heard in the national health care debate.

"In health care, you can see very clearly that we can't have it all," McGinnis said. "Some choices have to be made. Rather than having that discussion take place top-down, we would like to have that discussion take place bottom-up."

The poll, which was conducted for the council by the Gallup organization, revealed that in many ways the state of health care coverage in metro Detroit is good. Some 85% of poll respondents reported being covered by health insurance, which reflects the strong employer-paid plans and Detroit's relatively high percentage of union households.

Moreover, some 72% of people in the poll rated the quality of their own health care as excellent or good.

When asked how satisfied they were with their own health insurance plan, 31% reported being extremely satisfied while only 6% reported being not satisfied at all.

Yet cost and coverage issues create nagging worries for many metro Detroiters. Some 76% rated the cost of health care as "only fair" or "poor." Some 49% rated cost as more important than the choice of doctors, compared with 36% who opted the other way.

And in choosing a primary care doctor, whether the doctor is covered by their health plan trumped most other issues, including the doctor's bedside manner, the convenience of the doctor's location, and whether a friend or prior physician had recommended the new doctor.

Among other concerns, difficulty in understanding the details of their plan also raised worries for many people.

A panel of local health care experts will be on hand at Wednesday's town hall meeting, but McGinnis said the session will focus on audience concerns.

"We will have all the poll results so we can do a quick snapshot, but from that starting point we will first go to the audience," she said. "It's really about the audience, 'Why are you here? Tell us your top concerns,' and then we take off from those concerns to get reactions from the panel."

Greg Parston, director of the consulting firm Accenture's Institute for Public Service Value, which joined with the council to create the poll and host the meeting, said it's no surprise that concern is rising over the cost of health care.

"We have very good health care for those who can get it," he said. "A lot of people's health care coverage is associated with work, and if you're out of work even temporarily, you better stay healthy."

Founded in 1983, the Council for Excellence in Government is a nonpartisan organization that works to improve government performance and citizen participation. For information, go to www.excelgov.org.