Katharina Buczek
Ever since the 1920s, when the cost of hospital services began to increase, public dissatisfaction with the U.S. healthcare system has only grown. Though new data released this week by the polling organization West Health and Gallup paints an even more damning picture.
A nationally representative sample of over five thousand and five hundred Americans was surveyed for the 2022 West Health-Gallup Healthcare in America Report.
The survey participants were tasked with providing a letter grade for specific aspects of the healthcare system– such as accessibility, affordability, equity, and quality of care– as well as one overall grade.
And perhaps unsurprisingly, Americans across the board awarded the U.S. healthcare system with very low marks.
First, nearly four in ten Americans assigned a poor or failing grade (D or F) to care access– with Asian, Black, and Hispanic Americans and women being the most critical.
In fact, over forty percent of people in each of these groups assigned “access” a D or F letter grade as compared to about one-third of White Americans and men.
Equity, which refers to each U.S. citizen’s ability to get quality healthcare regardless of background, also received damning marks.
About sixty-six percent of Black Americans and sixty-four percent of Asian Americans assigned this pillar a D or F. Meanwhile, fifty-five percent of Hispanic Americans and fifty-three percent of White Americans agreed.
The next item on the docket, affordability, received the most failing grades– with seventy-five percent of Americans, or about one hundred and ninety million U.S. adults, awarding an average grade of D-minus.
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