Poll: Rural Nebraskans Worried About Health Care in Retirement

Poll: Rural Nebraskans Worried About Health Care in Retirement

September 28, 2007

Worries about health care loom over rural Nebraskans' retirement dreams — even for those who are decades away from their golden years, the Nebraska Rural Poll shows.

This year's 12th annual University of Nebraska-Lincoln poll asked 6,400 residents of Nebraska's 84 rural counties a number of questions about retirement plans, including a dozen focusing on health care. Results are based on 2,680 responses.

"With health care costs continually rising and the provision of rural medical services increasingly difficult, how these individuals are providing for, or plan on providing for, their medical needs is a matter of great importance not only for themselves but for the health care industry and policy makers at all levels," wrote UNL rural sociologist Randy Cantrell in a report summarizing the poll's findings.

Eighty-six percent of respondents cited health care as an important retirement issue. That includes 81% of the youngest respondents, those 19-29.

"Nineteen is pretty young to start worrying about your health in retirement, but they are," Cantrell said. "Most Americans are scared to death of finding themselves" in poor health and without sufficient health insurance.

Concern about health in retirement is reflected elsewhere in the poll. Seventy-four percent of respondents cited proximity to health care as a factor in their decisions on where to live in retirement. Fifty percent said availability of assisted-living facilities is an important consideration in deciding where to live.

Many parts of rural Nebraska have seen losses of medical care in recent years, which may make it harder to keep retirees from moving away. Health care also is a factor driving rural Nebraskans to continue working past retirement age, with 34% citing it as a reason. However, health care ranks below other reasons for working, including meeting basic income needs and keeping mentally and physically active. As for how they'll pay for health care, seventy percent of respondents are counting on Medicare being a major source of funding, although that perception varies widely by age. For example, only 46% of 19-29-year-olds expect Medicare to be a major source of support.

"This may reflect a growing distrust in the long-term viability of all government entitlement programs," Cantrell wrote. "It may also result from youthful optimism regarding their own capacity to earn and save money over their working lives."

Other sources of funding for health care, and the percentage of respondents that expect it to be a major source, include: supplemental health insurance, 44%; personal savings, 37%; pension, 29%; Medicaid, 27%; other continuing income sources, 22%; supplemental long-term care insurance, 20%; and assistance from family or friends, 6%.

The Rural Poll is the largest annual poll of rural Nebraskans' perceptions on quality of life and policy issues. This year's response rate was about 40%. The margin of error is plus or minus 3%.

The findings are summarized in a series of reports that can be found at http://cari.unl.edu/ruralpoll/report07.shtml.The university's Center for Applied Rural Innovation conducts the poll in cooperation with the Rural Initiative, the Department of Agricultural Economics, the Department of Sociology and the Institute for Ethnic Studies with funding from UNL Extension and the Agricultural Research Division in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Dan Moser
IANR News Service

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