30 Questions to Ask the Public about Health Reform

Preface: To help find the right solutions and the right path to health reform, we might start by asking the public this set of questions.

1. Are you better off than you were 2 ½ years ago?

2. Is the quality of your care better?

3. Is the cost of your care less? More? The same?

4. Will the status of health reform influence your vote in the upcoming Presidential election in November 2012?

5. Are you confident quality will be better and costs will be less in the future?

6. Has the waiting time to see a doctor gotten longer, shorter, or stayed the same?

7. If you are on Medicare, like 46 million Americans, are you having trouble finding a doctor?

8. If you are on Medicaid, like 68 million Americans, are you satisfied with your care?

9. Do you believe the more than $500 billion cuts in Medicare will improve Medicare? Make it worse? Are long overdue? Are necessary?

10. Do you think access to doctors and the attention they pay to you will improve under the health care law?

11. Do you approve of the health care law, now one year old?

12. Do you disapprove of the law?

13. Do you think the law ought to be repealed?

14. Do you think the law ought to be expanded?

15. Do you regard the law as constitutional?

16. Do you think the malpractice system ought to be reformed?

17. Would you be for changes in the health system that you allow you to shop across state lines

18. Do you think ordinary citizens should be allowed to participate in the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program, just like 10 million government employees, including Congressmen and Senators

19. Would a tax credit 0f $3000 for every individual and $6000 for every family for health care costs appeal to you?

20. Does the idea of Health Savings Accounts coupled with higher deductibles but with lower premiums, with money not spent for health care, being set aside for your retirement, appeal to you

21. Is the concept of a single-payer health system financed by everyone’s taxes, with one-size-fits-all care, attractive to you?

22. Do you believe the individual mandate, with everyone paying for insurance, is the right thing to do?

23. As the Medicare law now stands, doctors cannot bill outside of Medicare even if the patient desires a procedure or treatment not paid for by Medicare. Do you think it would be desirable for patients to privately contract with doctors, should the patient desire services not paid by Medicare?

24. Do you think most patients are informed enough to make the right decisions about their care?

25. Do you think government ought to have a greater or lesser role in helping patients make health care decisions?

26. Do you trust yourself to make the right decisions about your health care?

27. Do you trust your doctor (s) to make the right decisions about your health care?

28. Do you trust the government to help you make the right decisions about your health care?

29. Do you trust your health plan to make the right decisions about your health care?

30. Do you think we ought to dismantle the current health care law and start all over?