Is Health Care a Public Value?

Achieving high value for each patient is a core tenet within the field of health care, yet health care remains a divisive issue for some countries. The importance of value within health care often focuses on the individual patient with less emphasis on health care as a public value. This research explores different forms of health care systems and attempts to understand who believes access to health care is a public value. Using a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. citizens, this study presents statistically significant empirical evidence regarding values that predict the probability of individuals within age-based cohorts identifying access to health care as a public value. A theory of public values dissonance is also developed due to the incongruent beliefs that individuals possess regarding health care for themselves compared to the right of health care for all.