Healthcare Through Women's Eyes

What Women Want, Think Should Be Done and at What Cost?

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 - A new poll released Wednesday by the Independent Women's Forum shows that only 16 percent of women believe that health care should be Congress's top priority and that a majority (51 percent) is unsatisfied with what they have read, seen, or heard about the proposals being considered today. The poll, conducted by WomanTrend, a division of the polling company(TM) inc., surveyed 800 women registered to vote and was conducted between October 19-25, 2009.

In this poll, women were given the opportunity to answer, in an open-ended fashion, what questions or advice they have for their Members of Congress and for the President on health care. Concerns about paying for reform, controlling costs, eligibility, and what is included and excluded from the actual legislative proposals dominated as some of the central "themes" for women.

Key findings:

-- Government is not the solution: 61 percent of women think the private
sector does a better job of providing choice in health care.
-- Change for thee, but not for me: 75 percent want few to no changes to
their own healthcare (40 percent -- be modified, but mostly left as
is; 35 percent -- be left as-is).
-- No egg timers: 43 percent of women say that Congress and the President
should enact healthcare reform "only when quality legislation is
developed, even if it means there is no deadline." Less than three in
ten think it needs to happen by the end of the year.
-- Too expensive: Only 10 percent say that $1 trillion or more should be
spent on health care reform. Most put the acceptable amounts in the
thousands (16 percent), millions (24 percent), or billions (16
percent).

-- Concerns with waste: 77 percent say government spends money in a
mostly inefficient way and 55 percent believe CBO projections
underestimate how much will ultimately be spent on health care
reform.


The Independent Women's Forum commissioned this poll to gain a better understanding of women's attitudes toward the health care system and proposed reform, and how they will affect women's health care choices.