In their own words: Insured Americans support policy reforms that address access and affordability concerns

A survey of more than 5,000 Americans conducted with Ipsos found that insured Americans want better health care coverage. These insights come from the third installment of the Patient Experience Survey and show how Americans favor policy solutions that improve their ability to navigate and access their care by seeking to remove barriers imposed by insurers and middlemen such as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).

Here are three key findings, along with patients’ direct perspectives, from the latest PES report.

1. To insured Americans, better coverage means lower out-of-pocket costs, increased transparency and more predictability.
   
   Fifty-eight percent of insured Americans say they are willing to pay more for their health insurance premiums if it means having more services and prescriptions medicines covered. Moreover, 90% of insured Americans say they want more predictability in health care so that people know how much they will pay for things like prescription drugs every month. 
   
   
   
   
2. Patients want to eliminate inefficiencies introduced by insurance companies and PBMs.
   
   Eighty-three percent of insured Americans say health care costs would be lower if insurance companies and PBMs spent less time managing how medicines should be prescribed by doctors. 
   
   
   
   
3. Insured Americans support reforms that pass along the savings and make health care coverage more affordable. 
   
   Eighty-nine percent of insured Americans support requiring Part D insurance plans and PBMs to directly pass on any rebates or discounts on prescription drugs at the pharmacy counter. One-third (33%) support reducing the burden of deductibles by requiring insurance plans to cover more products and services before a deductible is met; it was the top ranked solution among 12 options listed. 
   
   

It’s clear that Americans want to address their true concerns around health coverage to deliver improved access to care and lower out-of-pocket costs. To learn more about challenges Americans face as they navigate the health system and solutions that seek to alleviate these challenges, visit PhRMA.org/Middlemen.

PhRMA’s Patient Experience Survey (PES) is a research initiative to explore the challenges Americans face as they navigate the health care system. The poll was conducted among 5,103 American adults (age 18 or older), including 4,720 with insurance, from May 23 – June 1, 2022, using Ipsos’ probability-based KnowledgePanel®, and it is representative of the American adult population. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults. The latest PES also features qualitative data from hours of in-depth interviews.