Despite saturation media coverage of the Affordable Care Act, many uninsured Americans remain clueless about Obamacare offerings, a new poll suggests.
“Over half (52 percent) of uninsured Americans are not at all or not very informed about the ACA, and nearly four in 10 (38 percent) have not heard about the new health insurance exchanges,” according to an analysis by the Transamerica Center for Health Studies.
The Harris Poll conducted an online survey of 1,203 U.S. adults (ages 18-64) from Nov. 17-Dec. 8. That’s just after open enrollment began nationwide for the second year of subsidized insurance offerings under Obamacare.
Six in 10 of the uninsured Americans have heard of the exchanges — established to sell health insurance to the uninsured or underinsured — but only a fraction have called one of the exchanges (3 percent) or spoken to a representative about an exchange (3 percent), the polling showed.
One fifth of those without coverage said they did not know how to obtain coverage — up significantly from polling done last summer.
A third of the uninsured respondents said they were better off paying for their own health care and the federal penalties vs. getting covered. Obamacare policies have been criticized for their high deductibles, which account for their relatively low premiums — meaning consumers end up paying for their health costs as if they were not insured.
In California, a recent health-care poll found that seven in 10 of the uninsured planned to get covered. Reasons cited were not wanting to pay the federal penalty (24 percent), that coverage is a legal requirement (20 percent), eligibility for financial help (16 percent) and new insurance options (13 percent).
In the national survey, half of the uninsured (49 percent) reported they were satisfied with the quality of health care they receive, compared with 86 percent of those continuously insured and 77 percent of the newly insured.
Just over half of all those polled said they felt the “shared responsibility” penalty for not having health insurance is wrong. Researchers found strong continuing support for other elements of the Affordable Care Act, including subsidies for low-income consumers, the elimination of lifetime coverage payouts and the elimination of pre-existing conditions in determining coverage eligibility.
This is the fourth round of polling done by the Transamerica Center, which describes itself as a nonprofit, private foundation “dedicated to identifying, researching and analyzing the most relevant health care issues facing consumers and employers nationwide.”
Read the Obamacare poll results.
Read the California health-care survey results (December).
Speak Your Mind