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New Survey
Majority Of Seniors Want
Medicare Drug Bill This Year,
But Worry They Will Still Pay Too
Much Even If Congress Acts
• Seven In 10
Seniors Don’t Know About Differences In House And
Senate Medicare Rx Drug Bills
• Majority of Public
Support Proposals to Buy Rx Drugs from Canada
Sept. 4,
2003, Washington, DC-- A new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation
and Harvard School of Public Health finds that a majority of seniors
(54%) want Congress to enact legislation this year to add a
prescription drug benefit to Medicare. However, more than three
quarters (76%) of seniors are worried, including 52% who are “very
worried,” that they will still pay too large a share of their drug
bills if legislation becomes law. Worries that the benefit will not be
generous enough eclipse all other concerns by a wide margin (18-27
percentage points difference in the percent very worried).
Underscoring the need for lawmakers to educate the public about their
proposals, nearly seven in 10 seniors (68%) don’t know whether or not
there are differences between the Senate and House bills. Similar
shares of seniors say they don’t know enough to say if there are
differences between the House and Senate plans when it comes to
specific issues being hotly debated on Capitol Hill, such as the role
of private plans (64%), whether Medicare will provide backup coverage
if there is no private plan (73%), how much help seniors would get
with their drug costs (58%), and how the proposals would affect
low-income seniors (55%).
Nearly
two-thirds of the public say they favor a proposal to enable people to
buy prescription drugs from Canada, even after being read arguments
for and against it.
“Seniors
want a more generous Medicare prescription drug benefit, but with the
federal deficit increasing, the window of opportunity for a richer
benefit may have been missed,” said Drew Altman, Ph.D., president and
CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“Congress
is between a rock and a hard place,” said Robert J. Blendon, Sc.D.,
Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the Harvard
School of Public Health. “Seniors will be critical of Congress if it
does not pass a prescription drug bill, but unhappy if it passes
either of the current bills.”
More than
four in ten seniors (44%) and six in ten people ages 18-64 (62%) say
they are not too or not at all familiar with the Medicare prescription
drug proposals in Congress.
About as
many seniors (37%) have an unfavorable impression of the Medicare
prescription drug proposals before the Congress as have a favorable
one (34%), while another three in ten (28%) say they don’t know or are
not familiar with the proposals.
The survey
by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public
Health on attitudes about prescription drug legislation was conducted
August 6-12, 2003, after the House and Senate passed different
versions of Medicare legislation. This follow-up survey complements a
broader, more comprehensive survey released in June on public
attitudes about the Medicare program and proposed changes, including
prescription drug coverage.
Other
Findings
After
being told seniors would pay about $35 a month for prescription drug
coverage in addition to their monthly Medicare premiums when the
proposed program goes into effect in 2006, 17% of seniors say the
premium is about right, 34% say it is too much, and 6% say it is too
little. A plurality (43%) of seniors say they do not know enough about
the proposal to judge.
In
addition to being worried that seniors would still pay too much for
their prescriptions if Congress were to pass a Medicare prescription
drug bill, around three in ten seniors say they would be “very
worried” that it would change Medicare too much (34%), that it would
rely too much on private plans (32%), and that it would not go far
enough in reforming Medicare (29%). About one in four seniors would be
“very worried” that it would be too costly to the government and
taxpayers (27%) and that it would expand the role of government too
much (25%).
While a
majority supports enactment of Medicare drug legislation, “taking into
account what they have heard” about it, when read arguments for and
against passing the legislation this year, support for passage erodes,
with 33% of seniors (37% of the public) saying Congress should pass
legislation now and 56% of seniors (57% of the public) saying Congress
should wait to enact a bill that provides more help to seniors.
Politics
The
Democrats in Congress hold an edge over both President Bush and the
Republicans in Congress on handling the prescription drug issue today.
When asked generally who is doing a better job handling the issue, 43%
of seniors (40% of the public) say the Democrats in Congress and 24%
of seniors (32% of the public) say the President. Looking at Congress
in particular, 37% of seniors (34% of the public) say Democrats are
doing a better job, 21% of seniors (24% of the public) say Republicans
and 18% of seniors (13% of the public) say neither.
One in
five seniors (21%) say they are very likely to vote against a
candidate who took a stand on prescription drugs different from their
own, but a similar share (24%) say this is “not at all likely” to
influence their vote.
Importation of prescription drugs
The survey
found strong support – 68% of the public and 65% of seniors – for
legislation that would make it easier for people to buy prescription
drugs from Canada.
When given
pro and con arguments (supporters say the proposal would lower prices
for many people and opponents say it could lead to unsafe drugs being
imported into the country), 63% of the public and 57% of seniors
continue to express support.
“Rightly
or wrongly, concerns about costs outweigh concerns about safety when
it comes to prescription drug importation,” added Altman.
Methodology
The Kaiser
Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health
Medicare Prescription Drug Survey
was designed and analyzed by researchers at the Kaiser
Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health. The
Kaiser/Harvard survey research team included Mollyann Brodie, Ph.D.,
Tricia Neuman, Ph.D., Kristina Hanson, Ph.D., and Liz Hamel from the
Kaiser Family Foundation; and Professor Robert Blendon, Sc.D., and
John Benson, M.A. of the Harvard School of Public Health. Fieldwork
was conducted by telephone by ICR/International Communications
Research between August 6 and August 12, 2003, among a nationally
representative random sample of 2,043 respondents 18 years of age and
older, including 1,608 adults ages 18-64 and 376 adults ages 65 and
older.
The margin
of sampling error for the survey is plus or minus 3 percentage points
for total respondents; for respondents ages 18-64 it is plus or minus
3 percentage points; and for respondents ages 65 and older it is plus
or minus 5 percentage points. For results based on smaller subsets of
respondents the margin of error is higher. Note that sampling error is
only one of many potential sources of error in this or any other
public opinion poll.
The Kaiser
Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health
Medicare Prescription Drug Survey
is available online at
http://www.kff.org/content/2003/20030903a.
Also available on this web page are links to the June 2003
Kaiser/Harvard School of Public Health National Survey of the Public’s
Views on Medicare and to an updated featured topic of the Kaiser
Health Poll Report examining public opinion on Medicare prescription
drugs.
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The Kaiser
Family Foundation is an independent, national philanthropy dedicated
to providing information and analysis on health issues to
policymakers, the media and the general public. The Foundation is not
associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries.
Harvard
School of Public Health is dedicated to advancing the public’s health
through learning, discovery and communication. More than 300 faculty
members are engaged in teaching and training the 800-plus student body
in a broad spectrum of disciplines crucial to the health and well
being of individuals and populations around the world. Programs and
projects range from the molecular biology of AIDS vaccines to the
epidemiology of cancer; from risk analysis to violence prevention;
from maternal and children’s health to quality of care measurement;
from health care management to international health and human rights.
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