With two weeks remaining until Election Day, more people are reporting problems with healthcare bills, and paying for health care retains a solid hold on the public’s list of their top economic concerns, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s final election 2008 tracking poll.
About one in three Americans now report their family has had problems paying medical bills in the past year, up from about a quarter saying the same two years ago. Almost one in five (18%) of Americans report household problems with medical bills amounting to more than $1,000 in the past year.
Nearly half (47%) of the public reports someone in their family skipping pills or cutting back on medical care they said they needed in the past year due to the cost of care. “Health care is now every bit as much an economic issue for the American people as job insecurity, mortgage payments and credit card debt,” said Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman.
