A new Gallup Poll shows that so far, the health care reform laws haven’t done much to impact the health insurance coverage for older Americans. The number of younger Americans with health insurance coverage has increased. The reform is just keeping up with the decrease in employer sponsored health insurance.
The Affordable Care Act has declined in popularity lately, (even among Democrats). A survey done in October of 2011 by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that American’s favorable view of the health care reform law has dropped to a new low. It hasn’t been this low since March of 2010, when the Affordable Care Act was first passed.
A new Gallup Poll appears to reveal some of the reasons why Americans are starting to look less favorably upon the Affordable Care Act. So far, it hasn’t really increased the number of older Americans who are covered by health insurance.
In the last quarter, around 17.3% of Americans lacked health insurance coverage. This was the highest number of uninsured people on record. The drop was attributed to the increase of uninsured young people, who were between the ages of 18 and 26. However, the Gallup poll was conducted by phone, so there is potential that it had a high number of cell-phone only respondents. Typically, that group is made up mostly of young adults.
The number of Americans who got their health insurance coverage from their employers has dropped to 44.5%. Two years ago, more than half of all Americans were covered by a health insurance plan that they got through their employer. This number is where it is today because of a few factors. Employer sponsored health insurance is disappearing. The unemployment rate has been steady, and high, for quite some time.
More than 25% of the population of the United States is relying on government-sponsored health insurance coverage. As the amount of coverage available from an employer decreases, the number of people who are using government-sponsored health insurance increases.
Certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act were designed to help increase the number of Americans who were covered by private health insurance. A few vivid examples of this come to mind.
Tax credits to small businesses were designed to help small businesses afford to offer their employees health insurance coverage. The pre-existing condition plan, one of the first portions of the Affordable Care Act to be put in place, was supposed to help Americans who had the hardest time finding insurance coverage to be able to have health insurance. So far, the Affordable Care Act hasn’t made a huge impact in the number of Americans who are able to afford private health insurance coverage.
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