Thursday, May 22, 2014

Another survey shows: those who remain uninsured don't know about ACA subsidies

Last week, I noted that a main takeaway of the latest McKinsey survey of 2874 people seeking health insurance in the individual market in 2014 was that the majority of those who said that they could not afford insurance did not know about the subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act. McKinsey found that 88% of those citing perceived affordability challenges were subsidy-eligible, and two thirds of the subsidy-eligible respondents who cited perceived affordability as the reason they stopped shopping were aware of neither their eligibility nor the amount for which they were eligible. Further, 90% of those citing perceived affordability challenges who did not shop were subsidy-eligible, and 79% of those were unaware of their eligibility or the amount of subsidy for which they were eligible.

Now, a survey just released by EnrollAmerica reports similar findings with regard to ignorance of ACA offerings.  Bruce Rule of Bloomberg reports:

Cost also was the main reason given by 39 percent of people who looked for insurance and decided against it [compared to 59% of this group in the McKinsey survey], according to a survey of 1,524 people by Enroll America, a nonprofit group allied with the White House that organized enrollment efforts in 11 states. Only 26 percent of those who didn’t enroll [853 respondents] were aware that there were government subsidies available, compared with 56 percent of people who did sign up.
I won't repeat my fulminations about those who worked to keep the uninsured ignorant -- but will note again that CBO always forecast full takeup of the ACA's offerings as a three-to-four year process. Getting the essential information to low-to-moderate people nationwide was always going to be a long slog. 

I haven't yet been able to locate the full survey results. I may update when I do.

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