Surprise: Consumers are Scared of Medical Errors & Increasingly Dissatisfied with U.S. Healthcare

More than half of the 2,000 adults surveyed "said they are dissatisfied with the quality of health care, up from 44% in 2000." Not dissatisfied enough to elect Kerry, though, apparently... The Kaiser poll did support one clear Bush mandate, namely a decreasing use of/emphasis on the courts and malpractice remedies for error:

Despite enormous frustration, few people indicated a desire to use the courts as recourse, calling into question policymakers' renewed interest in malpractice legislation, said Harvard pollster Robert Blendon. "They do not view the malpractice system as the way to resolve these problems," Blendon said. "They would like the medical errors reported by a public agency, have the agency release it and then have it printed in some kind of Consumer Reports, and then they can go somewhere else" for care, he said. About one-third of those surveyed said either they or a family member had experienced a medical error, but only 11 percent of them said they had sued for malpractice. By much larger margins, respondents favored remedies such as suspending the license of a doctor or nurse who makes medical errors.