Much is known about Californians' health coverage status and how much health care they use. Less understood are public attitudes about the affordability of health care and the behaviors that result from those attitudes. The California HealthCare Foundation commissioned Harris Interactive to survey a representative sample of the state's population to seek out attitudes about health costs. The sample included insured and uninsured individuals in proportions similar to those found in the general population.

The findings reveal that Californians have significant concerns about being able to afford health care services when they need them.

• Almost half said they worried a great deal or quite a lot about being unable to get care due to excessive cost.
• Just over half were worried about having enough coverage after retirement.
• Latinos were significantly more worried about cost than non-Latinos.

Further, Californians are stepping up efforts to control their costs by increasingly neglecting needed care and seeking less expensive prescription drugs.

• Of those who said they were in fair or poor health, 58% neglected care due to cost in 2007, up from 43% in 2004.
• Some 31% asked their doctors for a generic or less expensive drug, compared to 22% who did the same in 2004.

The findings showed that those who neglect care due to cost have higher rates of hospitalization and emergency department use.

The complete survey is available under Document Downloads.