Confidence in Medical System Drops

As the health care industry is poised to go through a number of changes, American confidence in the U.S. medical system is among the lowest it has been since the early 1990s.

A Gallup poll revealed that just 35% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the medical system, which is down from 41% last year. This marks a return to where it was in 2008-2009. Historically, the average is slightly higher at 39%.

The reason for this drop in confidence is likely the attention on the Affordable Care Act since it will ramp-up to full implementation in January 2014, according to Gallup.

Republicans’ confidence was down eight percentage points and is now below Democrats’ confidence, which fell very slightly.

“Although Americans' current level of confidence in the medical system is modest on an absolute basis, it is still higher than Americans' confidence in all but five of the 16 other U.S. institutions measured,” according to Gallup.

The institution in which Americans have the most confidence is the military, followed by small business and the police. Congress and HMOs inspire the least confidence in Americans. According to Gallup poll results, half of Americans have little or no confidence in Congress.

Unlike confidence in medical systems, Republicans, Democrats and independents are all equally likely to express low confidence in Congress. This isn’t too surprising considering the split control with Republicans in control of the House and Democrats having a majority in the Senate.