While U.S. workers may have a high opinion of the employee benefits that they have, few are of the mind that the state of health care in the country is on solid ground, according to the results of a new poll commissioned by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
More than 6 in 10 respondents – 61 percent – said that they considered the U.S. health care system to be in rough shape, the poll revealed, when asked to describe what they thought of it. More specifically, roughly 30 percent said it was "poor," and just under one-third thought it was "fair." Overall, that's up from last year, when 55 percent of people thought it could use some work.
Meanwhile, slightly more than 1 in 4 described the U.S. health care system as being in fine shape. Additionally, just 1 in 10 said it was "very good" and a mere 1 percent thought it was "excellent."
"The overall national opinion of the national health care system is bad and getting worse," said Paul Fronstin, director of health research and education at EBRI.
He added that routinely, Americans rank health care among the most pressing issues facing the U.S., up there with the condition of the national economy, the growing federal budget deficit, education and the state of unemployment. In October, nearly 250,000 jobs were added to the economy, helping to push the unemployment rate to below 6 percent for the first time in six years. However, economists have noted that part of the decline is attributable to a record number of individuals who have abandoned the job search entirely, frustrated by not being able to find work despite their efforts to do so.
Sentiment stable both before, after ACA
The EBRI study also took a look at what sentiment regarding health care in the country has been like both before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law and afterward. For example, when it comes to how confident consumers are with the quality of the system, close to 50 percent said they were "extremely" or "very" confident they'd be able to get the treatments they need when they need them both pre- and post-ACA.
However, when asked to predict about the future, less than one-third said that they were confident about obtaining needed treatments in a prompt fashion during the next 10 years.
Nearly two-thirds of businesses still 'confused' about ACA
Though the ACA was signed into law back in 2010 and much of it went into effect one year ago, a fairly large percentage of businesses still lack clarity about what it requires them to do. Among owners with at least 50 employees, close to two-thirds said they weren't certain about how the ACA impacted their company, based on a report from PNC Financial Services.
In 2015, business owners with 100 employees or more will be required to make employee benefits available to their workers. This mandate won't go into effect for companies with fewer than 100 but more than 50 until 2016.
