Health insurance marketplaces signing up few uninsured Americans, surveys say

The Washington Post ^ | 6 Mar 2014 | Amy Goldstein

[mandaladon]

The new health insurance marketplaces appear to be making little headway so far in signing up Americans who lack health insurance, the Affordable Care Act’s central goal.

A pair of surveys released on Thursday suggest that just one in 10 uninsured people who qualify for private health plans through the new marketplace have signed up for one — and that about half of uninsured adults has looked for information on the online exchanges or plans to look.

Taken together, the snapshots shown by the surveys provide preliminary answers to what has been one of the biggest mysteries since HealthCare.gov and separate state marketplaces opened last fall: Are they attracting their prime audience?

One of the surveys, by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., shows that, of people who had signed up for coverage through the marketplaces by last month, just one-fourth described themselves as having been without insurance for most of the past year.

The survey also attempted to gauge what has been another fuzzy matter: how many of the people actually have the insurance for which they signed up. Under federal rules, coverage begins only if someone has started to pay their monthly insurance premiums.

And, the survey show, that just over half of uninsured people said they had started to pay, compared with nearly nine in 10 of those signing up on the exchanges who said they were simply switching from one health plan to another.

The second survey, by researchers at the Urban Institute and based on slightly older data from December, shows that awareness of the new marketplaces is fairly widespread but that lower-income Americans and those who are uninsured are less likely to know about this new avenue to health coverage than other people.

[mandaladon]

“If there is one point to the law, it is to lower the number of uninsured,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy organization. “Ultimately, that has to happen for the law to be judged a success.”....................Bingo

[Red Badger]

Everybody on the lower side of the Bell curve thought it was going to be FREE.
Now they find out TANSTAAFL....................

[goldstategop]

I thought it was free? Lie Obamaphones!

No wonder people aren’t signing up - if its not free, they’ll take a pass.

Obamacare is a rousing success!

[fhayek]

Making a law that the uninsured have to buy health insurance is like making a law that homeless people have to buy a house.

[catnipman]

“Health insurance marketplaces signing up few uninsured Americans, surveys say”

Great. So obama and the democrats have completely destroyed the existing medial care and insurance systems, massively driven up rates and deductibles, taken away people doctors and insurance plans, have repeatedly lied about all of this, called anyone a liar if who said they weren’t better off under obamacare, and yet they didn’t achieve the primary goal of the whole horrific plan, namely helping to insure the uninsured.

Yep, that sounds about right. And pretty much what we conservatives have been saying for four years was going to happen for this Democrat/Socialist/Marxist/Progressive central planning monstrosity that turned over 1/6 of the U.S. economy to corrupt and incompetent government bureaucrats.

[dirtymac]

Good analogy! How about unintended consequences? Making people who do not use health care to any appriciable extent purchase costly health insurance will only cause them to by God get their moneys worth by using the hell out of their health insurance. Deductibles and co pays will go uncollected thereby increasing the uncompensated care provided by hospitals and doctors.

Great fix by a total idiot! and we knew it before we elected him. His only aim is the total destruction of America

[Chewbarkah]

It has been written repeatedly that ObamaCare would not be viable unless large numbers of young, previously uninsured people bought and paid for insurance, but did not use it very much.

So what are the hard numbers? Surely the 2700 page bill had cost estimates based on assumptions about participation. Failure to report the facts on this is unacceptable.

[VRWC For Truth]

FUBAR