Industries That People Trust

Given all the healthcare debate this year, it will be interesting to see how that influences the annual Harris Interactive poll on industries that people trust.  (They should include government as an industry to see how that stacks up.)

Let’s look back at the 2008 results to the two key questions (from a healthcare perspective):

“Which of these industries do you think should be more regulated by government – for example for health, safety or environmental reasons – than they are now?”

• Pharmaceutical and drug companies – 49%
• Health insurance companies – 49%
• Managed care companies – 39%
• Hospitals – 27%

“Which of these industries do you think are generally honest and trustworthy – so that you normally believe a statement by a company in that industry?”

• Hospitals – 31%
• Pharmaceutical and drug companies – 10%
• Health insurance companies – 7%
• Managed care companies – 5%

It seems strange to me that more people want the drug companies to be more regulated than managed care, but that they trust the drug companies more. 

I’d also love to know how many of those people had seen Sicko (the Michael Moore movie). 

I would suspect that 2009 will show a huge spike in regulation around banking and a lack of trust of wall street.