In 1998, The Washington Post reported:
Just as the managed-care industry gears up to combat a political backlash in Congress, it is taking a tongue-lashing in the nation's movie theaters. The film is "As Good as It Gets," but if you're an HMO lobbyist, it doesn't get much worse than this.
Audiences in the Washington area have been erupting in whoops, whistles and applause when actress Helen Hunt, playing the single mother of a chronically ill child, denounces HMOs with a string of unprintable epithets.
Hunt's character quickly apologizes for the outburst, but actor Harold Ramis, playing a physician, assures her that the apology is unwarranted.
"Actually, I think that's their technical name," he says.
Attitudes have not changed much.
Earlier this year, Gallup asked about confidence in various institutions. Note which one came in next to last.
In 2010, Gallup summarized a decade of data specifically about HMOs:
Similarly, Harris found that less than 10 percent regarded HMOs as honest and trustworthy.
Wow, I really had no idea that the nationwide numbers were this strongly opposed to HMOs. I guess growing up in California, I was more used to the opposing viewpoint mentioned in this article: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/11/business/la-fi-mo-health-insurance-rankings-20130311
ReplyDeletePerhaps voters don't even realize Kaiser is an HMO. Considering over half of Americans don't know the difference between a copay, premium, and deductible (1), and 29% can't name the Vice President (2), this seems entirely possible.
(1) http://www.aicpa.org/press/pressreleases/2013/pages/us-adults-fail-health-insurance-101-aicpa-survey.aspx
(2) http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/03/20/how-dumb-are-we.html