Poll: Uninsured sit on the sidelines as sign-up season ends
WASHINGTON – Most uninsured Americans are sitting on the sidelines as sign-up season under the federal health law comes to a close, according to a new poll that signals the nation’s historic gains in coverage are slowing.
The survey released Thursday by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation finds that:
Only 15 percent of the uninsured know this year’s open enrollment deadline is Sunday.
More than 7 in 10 say they have not tried to figure out if they qualify for the two main coverage expansions in the law, Medicaid and subsidized private health insurance.
Only 1 in 100 know the minimum penalty for being uninsured is going up to $695 in 2016.
About two-thirds say they have not been contacted about signing up for coverage.
“What this survey does suggest is that it will get harder and harder to continue to make gains in the share of people getting health insurance,” said Mollyann Brodie, Kaiser’s polling director. “I think we will be in a period where we will see slower and slower gains in that number.”
Nonetheless, administration officials said Thursday they are confident of a strong finish to sign-up season this weekend. Thirty-five states served by the federal HealthCare.gov website are ahead of where they were at the same point last year, said Andy Slavitt, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
More than 14 percent of Americans were uninsured in 2013 before the big coverage expansion under President Barack Obama’s health care law. That share dropped to 9 percent last year, according to the government.
The poll found that Americans remain divided on the Affordable Care Act, with 44 percent viewing it unfavorably and 41 percent holding a favorable view.
The Kaiser survey was conducted Jan. 13-19 among a nationally representative sample of 1,204 adults. For the entire poll, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For the uninsured, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 10 percentage points.