Despite the Affordable Care Act exceeding its enrollment goals, Americans view on the law remains unchanged and a majority believe enrollment fell short of expectations.
A monthly tracking poll of 1,504 adults conducted April 15-21 after open enrollment closed by Kaiser Health Tracking Poll found that 54% believe enrollment fell short of the governments expectations, while 21% believe it met expectations. Further, just 43% were able to identify that almost 8 million people have signed up for coverage.
See related:
See related:
Compared to the March tracking poll, conducted while open enrollment was still in action, Americans view of the law remains unchanged with 46% of the public having a unfavorable view and 38% a favorable view. Along party lines, three-quarters of Republicans have an unfavorable view as compared to two-thirds of Democrats viewing it favorably.
Even though the news about 8 million exchange enrollments seems to have broken through for a lot of people, their views of whether that represents a success or not are still strongly tied to partisanship and how they feel about the law overall, explains Liz Hamel, Kaisers director of public opinion and survey research, in an e-mail. Most people say they havent felt any direct impacts of the ACA yet themselves, and so their views at this point are based more on what theyre seeing and hearing in the media than on their own personal experiences.
Overall, more than half (57%) say that there have been so many problems since the laws rollout that its clear ACA is not working as planned, while 38% say the law is basically working as planned. The other 5% is believed neither/didnt know/or refused to answer.
