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In the current era of U.S. health citizen grievance with the health care system, people feel anxious, confused, and angry — especially when it comes to access and affordability of health care.
We learn more about these emotional drivers of health/care grievance in Understanding Health Plan Member Discontent, an assessment of health consumers’ views of satisfaction across health insurance plan types (commercial, Medicaid, Medicare, and marketplace plans) and age of member, from the health consumer experience team at Press Ganey.
Those three underlying factors driving discontent translate to different generations differently. Overall, anxiety relates to health plan members worried about getting the care they need — and affording it. “These aren’t hypothetical concerns,” Press Ganey observes.
Then there’s confusion, which leads to mistrust — especially when plan members don’t understand information, causing further confusion.
As for anger — Press Ganey points to the recent murder of a UnitedHealthcare executive which, in Press Ganey’s words, “surfaced deeper anger.”
Here is the age story, relating directing to the issues of access to necessary health care services and products, and affordability (in this case, for a high deductible health plan).
It is clear in Press Ganey’s research that the younger the U.S. consumer — plan member — the more concerned the person is about their ability to access and afford their health care.
Again — as Press Ganey warns: “these aren’t hypothetical concerns.”
How to close the trust-gap? Health plans must, “operate in a way that builds social capital….so that relationships between plans and members are grounded in trust, reciprocity, and mutual respect.”
Dr. Thomas Lee of Press Ganey has described this in his book on Social Capital in Healthcare — that, “these relationships are the connective tissue that enable organizations to thrive during complexity and uncertainty.”
Health Populi’s Hot Points: To re-construct that social capital, the connective tissue, Press Ganey outlined seven actions which are relevant to all health care industry stakeholders looking to re-build trust equity with health consumers, patients, caregivers, health citizens all.
To understand more of the “why to do this,” see my post from 26 September 2025 covering Gallup’s recent poll on Americans’ views of the top 25 industries in the U.S. — in which pharmaceuticals ranked lowest with the ad industry and the Federal Government, and health care (insurance, providers) somewhat higher — albeit still requiring great trust equity to earn peoples’ engagement.
The post The Emotional Drivers of Healthcare Discontent – Press Ganey Points to Access and Affordability Worries Driving Anxiety and Anger appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.
