Public Opinion on Healthcare Costs Reduction, pt.3

Today a couple more insights from the Harvard School of Public Health report. Despite the overall differences in general public perception of healthcare systems and governments healthcare-related decisions among nationalities, the judgement of specific decisions is common for all of them. All investigated groups, but Britons, agree with the statement that many patients are given unnecessary high-cost prescription drugs and treatments, but at the same time, as a result of cost-reductions, such drugs and treatments are withhold from numerous patients which might benefit from them.

In (your country) today, how often do you think (the government or health insurance plans withhold/the national health service withholds) high-cost (prescription drugs/medical or surgical treatments) from some people who might benefit from them in order to save money?

People also strongly oppose any policies restricting access to high-cost prescription drugs and treatments, including situations when there's no evidence they bring better outcomes than available cheaper options, unless less expensive alternatives have been shown to be more effective. This suggests that in public opinion we just simply deserve more advanced treatments even if their costs don't account for their effectiveness. Does it mean we believe in higher prices= better value more than rational arguments?

Public Opinion on Healthcare Costs Reduction, pt.2

As shown in the previous post, US citizens are the most dissatisfied with their healthcare system among the four nations included in Harvard's study, with the prevalent number of almost 30% which are very dissatisfied (vs 3% in UK and 5% in Germany). Taking into account that US healthcare is the most innovative in the world, but at the same time the most expensive and the least cost-effective when compared with other top 18 developed nations, such data are not surprising and may indicate public awareness of the US healthcare system major problems. On the other hand, UK which has the best cost-effectiveness of the healthcare system, shows the highest proportion of those who are either fairly (44%) or very (24%) satisfied with the way it runs in their country. These numbers correspond to the level of confidence people have for the governments healthcare-related decisions (Americans don't trust them, whereas Britons rather do). The question is whether the two different degrees of credence attribute to the amount of satisfaction, or rather to the general social beliefs in central government decision-making and regulatory role (are Americans much more liberal, or even libertarian than Britons?).

Public Opinion on Healthcare Costs Reduction, pt.1

The rising costs of healthcare system appears to be a big issue not only in the US private insurance-dominated scheme, but also in countries where healthcare is mainly public and guaranteed to the vast majority of individuals (e.g. EU countries). The need for reducing those still growing expenses seems to meet agreement among policy makers, however the real solutions are either difficult to achieve, or do not meet acceptance among public.

The Harvard School of Public Health and the Alliance for Aging Research recently published the results from their Four-country Comparative Effectiveness Decision-making and Patient Survey, in which they address this problem, at least in terms of public perception of cost-reducing solutions limiting access to high-cost prescription drugs and medical procedures.
The telephone surveys were performed in four countries including USA, UK, Italy and Germany. They included both general questions regarding satisfaction from healthcare systems and governments general policies in those countries, as well as acceptance for specific regulations, which were actually implemented in some of these countries, however without the specific details including actual drug/procedure names and countries in which such regulations are functioning.

The results are interesting, however not really surprising.

As a foretaste a sample of data showing general state of comfort concerning their respective healthcare systems among US, UK, Italian and German citizens:

More insights from this report in upcoming posts...