May 2, 2008 
Deloitte recently published their results from a survey of more than 3,000 Americans on healthcare. Here were some of their high level findings:
- 93 percent of consumers say they’re not adequately prepared for future health care costs
- 79 percent say candidates’ positions on health care are likely to influence their presidential vote
- 46 percent place health care among their top three voting concerns
- 26 percent would pay more for online access to medical records and results
- 84 percent prefer generic drugs to name brands
- 39 percent say they’d go abroad for treatment if quality was comparable and the cost was cut in half
- 66 percent either strongly support (36 percent) or might support (30 percent) state-mandated health insurance
- 63 percent either strongly support a tax increase to provide coverage for the uninsured (29 percent), or are inclined to support one (34 percent)
- 52 percent understand their health insurance plans
- Only 8 percent understand their health insurance completely
- 18 might turn down a job to retain current health care coverage
- 34 percent would use a retail/walk-in clinic; 16 percent have already have
- 78 percent want to customize their insurance to include the features they value, with the cost changed accordingly
“The U.S. health care system is in the midst of a transformational change that many believe is centered on consumerism — the process of enabling and engaging consumers more directly in selection and purchase decisions regarding health care services. A traditionally one-way conversation is becoming a dialogue as the health care system transitions from patient-oriented to consumer-oriented. Industry stakeholders need to prepare to address the challenges and opportunities that consumerism presents.”
They have a lot more on their website about this:
Enabling Healthy Decisions 
The “six segments” link was pretty funny. Is Deloitte that behind the times? The fact that U.S. health consumers are not homogenous has been scientifically known for over twenty years, and intuitively known for a lot longer than that. Other companies define the differences differently. Yankelovich recently did their own really large survey of over 20,000 respondents across 14 countries including the U.S. and found twenty-five segments. And what about the nine health consumer types promoted by the PATH Institute (my company) that were discovered back in 1989 and that have been verified across the U.S. with over 250,000 people? The bottom line is that Deloitte did not discover that health care consumers are different, except mainly for themselves.