Health Care Costs On Their Minds

It barely registers as an election issue, but a new survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute finds increasing dissatisfaction with the nation's health care system, primarily because of rising costs. "Six in 10 Americans rate the health care system as fair (28 percent) or poor (31 percent). The percentage of individuals rating the system as poor has doubled since the inception of the HCS in 1998 (15 percent)," the survey found.

One result especially intrigued me: When asked if they would trade in their employer-sponsored plan for tax-free cash and given the option of buying their own insurance, three-fourths of the respondents say no. So much for public interest in individual mandates or high-deductible plans. People want health insurance that makes them secure in the knowledge they'll be taken care of if they get sick. They don't want to become "consumers" in a wild west health care market.

The survey also found that more than a third of respondents said rising health care costs were eating into their ability to save for retirement, up from a quarter of respondents two years ago.

Health care and retirement. These issues aren't going away anytime soon. Perhaps in a few weeks we'll have a Congress ready to start considering long-term fixes for these problems.