By Patrick O’Connor and Louise Radnofsky | The Wall Street Journal
Do the uninsured think they’ll be better off under the Affordable Care Act? What percentage of the uninsured understand the new law and plan to sign up for insurance? WSJ’s Jason Bellini has “The Short Answer.”
Americans’ unease with President Barack Obama’s health-care law has intensified, just as the administration is gearing up to persuade people to sign up for some of its major provisions, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey finds.
Prior Journal/NBC polls have found more people calling the health law a bad idea rather than a good one. But the number calling it a bad idea reached a high of 49% in a poll of 1,000 adults taken between May 30 and June 2, with 43% “strongly” holding that view.
Some 37% called the law a good idea. The 12-point gap between supporters and skeptics is the largest since a survey taken in March 2010, the month the health law was passed.
Moreover, far more people think they will be worse off under the new law than those who think they will benefit from it, 38% to 19%, the new Journal/NBC poll found. The margin of error in the poll is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Statement by David Weissman, head of Rose Law Group Employment Law Department: “It’s really not all that surprising that people are uneasy about how the health care law will affect them in 2014, when its major reforms are scheduled to take effect. For some people, the changes may be significant, and we don’t know yet for sure what the costs will be.
“That said, premium rates for individual policies on the insurance exchanges in the several states that have released those rates – including California – have actually been lower than expected, which is good news. Only time will tell what those rates will look like in other state exchanges and for other segments of the market (such as employer-sponsored group health plans), but based on this initial information, there is reason to be optimistic.”
