Survey fielded within 24 hours of ruling reveals “gender divide” among seniors
Extend Health Survey: Seniors on Medicare Respond to U.S. Supreme Court Decision on Healthcare Reform Law: 46% of Senior Women View the Decision as “Positive”; 27% of Senior Men
<0> For Extend Health, Inc.Rob Wyse, 212-920-1470 </0>
A survey of 441 seniors on Medicare fielded from June 29-July 2, 2012, showed that 46% of female respondents view the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of the healthcare reform law as “positive,” compared with just 27% of male respondents. In addition, 40% of senior women said that the fact that the ruling upheld provisions closing the Part D prescription drug coverage gap, known as the “donut hole,” influenced how they felt about the ruling, compared to just 26% of senior men who felt similarly.
The survey was fielded by , operator of the nation’s largest private Medicare exchange. The company has been surveying seniors on their attitudes about retirement, healthcare and Medicare since December 2009. Extend Health is a Towers Watson company.
Under the healthcare reform law, individuals who fall into the donut hole receive a 50% discount on the cost of brand-name prescription drugs, with that discount increasing in future years until it reaches 75% in 2020. If the Supreme Court had ruled the law unconstitutional, that provision would have been overturned.
Said Bryce Williams, Managing Director of Extend Health, “The healthcare reform law is a divisive issue for many Americans, but seniors on Medicare apparently line up along gender lines. Based on comments made by our survey respondents, the reason for the different views of women versus men is based in part on women’s experience as caregivers to multiple generations: their children, their parents and their spouses. Perhaps this accounts for the difference in how women view the healthcare reform law and its goal of insuring more Americans.”
Questions and detailed results from the survey are as follows:
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