Bush has made it clear he’s got his agenda for America’s health care problems: capping medical malpractice awards. A newly-released poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health makes it clear that this goal is only a minor part of the public’s health care agenda. In this poll, respondents were given a series of 12 health care reforms that they could rate as a top priority and reducing jury awards in malpractice suits came in 11th out of these 12 items. Just 26 percent said it should be a top priority, compared to these figures for the top three health care reforms: 63 percent said lowering the cost of health care and insurance should be a top priority, 58 percent said making Medicare more financially sound for the future should be and 57 percent said increasing the number of Americans with insurance should be.
The poll also finds that Bush’s signature accomplishment in the health care field, the Medicare reform bill that established a prescription drug benefit within that program, remains unpopular with the very group, seniors, who were the intended beneficiaries of the new benefit. Just 29 percent have a favorable impression of the new law and 70 percent believe lawmakers in Washington should work to fix the problems in the new law, rather than leave it as it is. The three key problem to be fixed are that the bill is too complicated for people on Medicare to understand (81 percent say this problem needs fixing), that it does not do enough to lower prescription drug prices (78 percent) and that it does not provide people on Medicare enough help with their prescription drug costs (also 78 percent).