Americans Agree Nurse Compensation is Too Low, Execs Overpaid

August 17, 2021 - The majority of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum agree that nurse compensation is too low, according to a recent poll conducted by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Meanwhile, the majority of people agreed that doctors, physical therapists, and pharmacists are appropriately paid.

The poll used data from the AmeriSpeak Omnibus and conducted interviews with over 1,000 respondents in June 2021 to determine what effect, if any, partisanship had on attitudes toward healthcare policies since the onset of COVID-19.

The majority of respondents also reported believing that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had no effect on pay for doctors or nurses, but a third agreed that the ACA did boost pay for hospital and insurance executives.

The poll also found that most Americans put a lot of trust in healthcare professionals.

“The vast majority of Americans trust a variety of health care practitioners to do what is right for their families most of the time, but few trust hospital executives,” the poll found.

“While more than three-fourths trust doctors, nurses, and pharmacists at least most or almost all of the time, only about a fifth say the same of hospital executives.”

Overall, partisanship rarely played a role in the respondents’ level of trust in healthcare professionals.

Over half of respondents supported using government funding to increase the total number of doctors in the US, but only 17 percent supported using federal funding to increase doctors’ pay. However, Democrats made up over 84 percent of the supporters, and 41 percent of Republicans opposed using government funding to increase the number of doctors.

“The bipartisan consensus around health care workers’ pay provides insights into the types of policies that could gain broad public support,” the report explained.

“The survey results show that reforms that increase pay for nurses and health care aides or lower the salaries of executives are likely to appeal to both Democrats and Republicans.”

Democrats were also more likely to support the ACA, a public option, and a single payer healthcare system. ACA supporters were also more likely to support federal funding for increasing doctors’ salaries.

Over 70 percent of survey respondents favored increasing government funding to lower out-of-pocket patient costs, and 59 percent supported expanding government health insurance coverage for low-income populations.

Again, Democrats favored these policies in larger numbers, but very few Republicans opposed allowing the federal government to negotiate for lower drug prices specifically compared to other measures.

Perceptions of healthcare workers and the industry as a whole shed some light on how much the general public knows about the inner workings of the US healthcare system.

“Most of the public clearly believes doctors are paid about the right amount or are overpaid, but many Americans don’t have an accurate sense of doctors’ salaries,” Joshua Gottlieb, an associate professor at Harris Public Policy, explained in a press release.

“More research on health care workers’ pay could better inform public opinion around health care policies, spending, and the government’s role in shaping contemporary labor markets.”