This outfit called Morning Consult has done some polling to gauge American attitudes towards some aspects of our health care system and then created a word cloud of the responses. Interestingly, “expensive” and “greedy” are associated with insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies and hospitals. Americans are more positive about nurses and Medicare. I’m posting the two word clouds for Insurance Companies and Medicare (thinking that the idea of being able to buy into Medicare as a Public Option was really a missed opportunity by Congress), but you should go over and see all of their word clouds — it is an interesting narrative:
In a word or two, could you please tell me what comes to mind when you think of health insurance companies?
In a word or two, could you please tell me what comes to mind when you think of Medicare?
This is most interesting to me as this is pretty much the reverse of how Congress prioritizes dealing with these items. In the main, the portions of the system that consumers like and value are the bits that Congress is least likely to support. And the portions of the system that consumers are least happy with are the portions that the government is most interested in supporting and funding– and those portions are also the parts of the system with the most money to spend on campaign contributions and lobbying.