26,000 Share Top Health Concerns in AFL-CIO Survey (faith-based health care system)

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/25/26000-share-top-health-concerns-in-afl-cio-survey/

by Mike Hall, Mar 25, 2008



In Veneta, Ore., Dorene relies on a unique form of health care coverage. The laid-off manufacturing worker, whose job was shipped overseas in 2006, says she is:

on the faith-based health care system. I pray I don’t get sick. Oh yeah, I’m a cancer survivor and I haven’t done the yearly check-up in three years.

Dorene counts on prayer for her health care because she and the nearly 27,000 other men and women who took the AFL-CIO/Working America 2008 Health Care for America Survey have lost faith in the nation’s health care system. The survey, released today, is one of the largest opinion pools available on health care. Of those who took the survey, nearly 7,500 submitted personal stories. The survey and stories are available at www.healthcaresurvey.aflcio.org.

How broken is America’s health care? Ninety-five percent of those who took the online survey—released today, click here—say it needs fundamental change or to be completely rebuilt.

For the uninsured, the system’s failures strike hard.

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In the past year, 76 percent of people who lack insurance themselves and 71 percent of people with uninsured children say someone in their family did not visit a doctor when sick because of cost.
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Sixty-seven percent of the uninsured and 66 percent of those whose children are uninsured report skipping medical treatment or follow-up care recommended by a doctor.
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Fifty-seven percent of the uninsured and 61 percent of people with uninsured children had to choose between paying for medical care or prescriptions and other essential needs (such as the rent or mortgage and utilities).

The respondents include union members and those without unions, young and old, insured and uninsured. The AFL-CIO will present the results of this survey to candidates for public office at every level and increase its mobilization to help ensure that candidates who win in November go into office with a mandate for real health care reform.


The often heart-wrenching personal stories submitted tell of skipping medical care because of the cost, or of seeing loved ones becoming seriously ill and sometimes dying because they couldn’t afford proper care. Even those with health insurance relate horror stories in which insurance companies deny coverage or they are unable to afford the increasingly costly deductibles, co-payments and premiums. (Click here to read the stories.)


During the past several years, much has been written about the health care problems of the nation’s uninsured—now some 47 million people. What is particularly striking about those who took the AFL-CIO survey and who expressed such deep dissatisfaction about the health care system is that most are insured and employed. Most are college graduates and more than half are union members.


Health care will be a major issue in the 2008 presidential and congressional campaigns, say 79 percent of respondents and 97 percent say they do plan to vote this fall. To learn more about the AFL-CIO’s efforts for affordable, quality health care for all, click here.


Tonight, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will hold a conference call with several hundred of the survey’s respondents who have volunteered to become health care activists to help fix the health care system and Turn Around America.


Says President Sweeney:

We have to help candidates who support real reform become active champions for health care. And we have to expose and hold accountable candidates at all levels who oppose real reform and propose false solutions.

The survey found the health care woes working families face today are part of the larger economic problems confronting them. Eighty-three percent of the respondents say their families have just enough to get by or are falling behind and 84 percent fear their children’s standard of living will be worse.

FULL story at link.