People like their health insurance unless they have to use it.

The New York Times editors must have felt a burning need to respond to the wide-spread public response to the killing of the United Healthcare CEO.

As social media exploded with stories of personal experiences folks have had dealing with the bean counters in the health insurance industry, politicians and pundits were clueless, lecturing the rest of us about how bad people we must be to tell these stories at this moment.

So a few days ago The Times printed a poll that showed that most people were satisfied with their for-profit health care.

Which is true.

Unless you have to use it.

Even the Times was forced to report that Gallup poll released earlier this month found just 28 percent of Americans say health care coverage in the U.S. is excellent or good, the lowest figure the polling firm has found on that question since it started asking it in 2001.

And a Kaiser Health News survey found that those who actually need health care are the most unhappy with it.

The KFF Survey of Consumer Experiences with Health Insurance finds that groups with greater health needs, who generally are more likely to use their health insurance to seek care, are also more likely to rate their health insurance negatively.

Insured adults who describe their physical health as either “fair” or “poor” are more likely to give their health insurance a negative rating, but the shares of those who describe their health this way also differ between insurance coverages. Across all coverage types, about one in six insured adults (16%) describe their physical health status as “fair” or “poor,” with larger shares of those with Medicaid (32%) and Medicare (23%) describing their physical health in this way.

It appears we have a health care system that we like if we rarely have a need for it.

Got it.