The Covid-19 pandemic has unsettled the entire globe. California is no exception. A poll conducted by Blue Shield of California/Harris revealed that around 41% of citizens found it hard to get care in 2020. Around 26% of the respondents said that the nature of care they acquired has deteriorated drastically since the outbreak of Covid-19 while 6% rated their care as of very poor quality.
- The poll was conducted between February 2 and 15, striving to gauge access to health care, comfort levels with the workplace, and public safety among the people of California during the pandemic.
- It found that the industry’s expansion of telemedicine helped people as 49% said they had a telemedicine visit during the pandemic, just 39% said they had done so before COVID-19. And 82% who used telemedicine were satisfied with the service.
- Blue Shield CA said the poll represents a broad swath of Californians – privately insured, uninsured, MediCal recipients, self-insured and more – Blue Shield of California has 4.4 million members, the state has 40 million residents.
- According to the findings of the poll, the nature of healthcare has gotten worse for some specific groups: 32% Hispanic, and 35% of young adults were more likely to say that the care has become more detrimental and gotten worse than before.
- Peter Long, Senior VP, Chief Healthcare Transformation and Affordability Officer at Blue Shield, said, “At Blue Shield, we are working to ensure that every strategy, program, policy, and process leads us to a more equitable health care system for all”.
- Blue Shield said it commissioned the poll to better understand not only how the pandemic had changed health care in the state, but to assess the system’s ability to reach people and provide quality services. The poll’s findings were not surprising: people of color, those with low incomes, and young adults were more likely to say they had a hard time accessing care.