"What's a subsidy?" -- It's hard to reach the uninsured

Back in May, I noted a remarkable finding in a McKinsey survey of those who bought or sought health insurance in the individual market during the ACA's first open season:  Most of those who failed to obtain coverage were eligible for subsidies but did not know they were eligible. Two thirds of subsidy-eligible respondents who visited healthcare.gov but did not enroll were not aware of their eligibility -- and so had no idea how much health insurance would actually cost them.

Those findings are corroborated in a survey conducted at about the same time (April 10-28), commissioned by EnrollAmerica and conducted by PerryUndem Research/Communication. I just happened on this because HuffPost's Jeffrey Young cited the results in a story about the challenges of meeting signup targets in ACA year 2. Ignorance among the uninsured remains perhaps the greatest barrier (excepting the refusal of about half the states to accept the law's Medicaid expansion).

The EnrollAmerica survey drew responses from 671 new enrollees and 853 people who remained uninsured. 60% of those who remained uninsured said they wanted insurance. Only 21% of those who did not try to enroll knew that financial help was available to low-to-moderate income buyers -- and only 38% of those tried but failed to enroll were aware of this basic fact.

Perhaps even more remarkably, only 56% of those who did enroll in coverage knew that the law gives financial help to low- and moderate-income buyers. At the same time, 75% of enrollees, including 69% of those who enrolled online, said that the signup process was easy. Perhaps in this one regard it was a bit too easy, i.e., it was not hammered home that your friendly federal government was subsidizing your purchase.

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: