Sick U.S. adults unhappy with healthcare

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PRINCETON, N.J., May 22 (UPI) -- Polls have shown majorities are happy overall with their healthcare coverage, but a U.S. survey indicated 75 percent of those who had been sick were unhappy.

The survey for NPR/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health of people who had been sick found 70 percent said the cost of healthcare had gotten worse in the last five years. Those counted as sick in the survey included 27 percent of U.S. adults who said they had a serious illness, medical condition, injury, or disability requiring a lot of medical care or who had been hospitalized overnight in the past 12 months.

They said they experienced several quality of care problems, including getting an infection while in the hospital, getting the wrong diagnosis, treatment or test, and not being able to see a nurse when need, the survey found.

Most sick U.S. adults surveyed had health insurance but the cost of treatment was a serious financial problem -- with some reporting they had been turned away from getting medical care due to financial or insurance reasons, while others said they did not get needed medical care because they could not afford it.

The telephone survey of 1,508 U.S. adults by SSRS/ICR of Media was conducted March 5-25, with 516 respondents identified as "sick." The margin of error for total respondents was 3.1 percentage points, while the margin of error for sick respondents was 5.3 percentage points.