A Poll done by Kaiser Family Foundation shows that almost half of Americans who lack health insurance do not understand how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will help them. This is the group that stands to gain the most from the current health care reform. Many only know about the insurance mandate, (which they are not in favor of).
The Kaiser Family Foundation did a poll that tracked the views of Americans who did not have health insurance. Specifically, the Foundation asked this group how they thought the health reform law would help them. The results showed that this group of Americans does not have a very good understanding about how the Affordable Care Act works, or how it will benefit them.
Almost half of the people who took the poll, 47% said that the Affordable Care Act “won’t make much difference” to them. About half of the respondents were unaware of the tax credits for low-income and for middle-income people that are part of the health reform laws. A total of 53% did not know about the expansion to Medicaid that is a part of this law.
In short, it seems that uninsured Americans are largely unaware of how the Affordable Care Act will help them to purchase health insurance that they can actually afford in the next few years. Only three out of every ten people who took the poll said that the ACA would help them to get health care. This comes out to around 31% of respondents.
This doesn’t mean that the low-income and middle-income people who took the poll were completely and entirely unaware of the ACA. 14% of them said that they felt the law would hurt them. A total of 65% of the Americans who took this poll indicated that they knew about the insurance mandate. This is the part of the ACA that would require all Americans to purchase health insurance in 2014. It is, by far, the least popular part of the law.
Overall, this means that the group of Americans that the health reform law is designed to help the most have the least information about how the law will benefit them. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Affordable Care Act would insure around 32 million Americans.
People who have low-income, (or middle-income), are busy. If they have a family to take care of, then these people are probably working long hours, or working at more than one job, in order to make ends meet. This leaves a very small amount of time for this group to research or learn about the health care laws. It seems that the majority are only aware of the part that has been shouted about the most : the insurance mandate. Personally, I hope that this does not cause people to end up voting against their own best interests, due to lack of information.
Image by Stefan Baudy on Flickr