Raise your voice on health care

I often tell you a story in this column. Now I'd like you to tell me one. You might feel better if you get it off your chest, and it'll be a great help to us as we continue working toward better health care for all consumers.

This issue of Consumer Reports contains the first reports in a series that will feature the dilemmas and costs we all face getting health care. Many of you have already told us about your experiences, and that has guided us as our journalists develop reports and our advocates develop Consumers Union's recommendations for reforming the broken U.S. health-care system.

These days, Congress is debating various health-care bills, some states are taking matters into their own hands, and the presidential candidates are crafting widely diverse strategies for reworking the system. In the coming year, we'll all hear plenty about those strategies. Our experts at Consumers Union will be following the plans closely, and as we near the elections in November 2008, we'll be giving you our take.

This isn't new territory for CU. From our early days in the 1930s, health care has been part of our mission to improve the marketplace for consumers. We've reported on nursing homes, hospitals, health plans, and long-term-care insurance, as well as prescription drugs and medical treatments.

Your viewpoint helps shape our efforts. The reports in this issue encompass experiences of 3,000 consumers in a nationally representative survey who told us about the often tough choices they've made to get adequate health care. More than a quarter of them paid $2,000 or more in out-of-pocket health expenses over the previous 12 months. More than one-third postponed getting medical care for themselves or their family because of costs. And almost half of them say they're somewhat or completely unprepared to cope with a costly medical emergency in the coming year. In addition, based on reports from 37,000 readers, we rated 80 HMOs and PPOs.

So what's Consumers Union doing about health care? We're ramping up our research and reporting to dig out the facts about the health-care crisis as the national debate heats up. We're lobbying in California, where reform efforts are under way, for affordable, quality health care, and increasingly we'll be directing our efforts nationally. We've spearheaded successful campaigns in 19 states to require disclosure of hospital-acquired-infection rates because the more you know about the record of your hospital, the safer you'll be. And we've been working at the federal level to strengthen prescription-drug safety by requiring full disclosure of drug studies and limits on drug advertising.

Here's my request: You can help Consumers Union be most effective in improving health care and health insurance by giving us your perspective. Tell us your experiences. Thanks in advance for your time.