Maybe it was the heated debate on “death panels,” or the inflamed rhetoric about “socialized medicine” and “rationed care,” or the arcane complexity of the sweeping reforms.
Whatever the reason, another online poll shows that most Americans are confused by the healthcare reform law. The Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll found that a majority of the 2,104 adults who took the online survey from July 15-19 could correctly identify only four of 18 reforms included in the new law.
About 58% of adults polled know that the reform package will prohibit insurers from denying coverage to people because they are already sick; 55% know the law permits children to stay on their parents' insurance plan until age 26; and 52% realize that people who don't have insurance will be subject to financial penalties. Half are aware that employers with more than 50 employees will have to offer their workers affordable insurance.
Among other findings: 63% of those polled either aren't sure or don't know if the new law will increase the number of people eligible for Medicaid, (it will); 79% don't know or aren't sure if drug companies will pay an annual fee, (they will); 73% don't know the law establishes a new tax on the sale of medical devices; 66% don't know or aren't sure if the legislation will result in insurance exchanges where people can shop for insurance, (it will); and about 82% think the bill will result in rationing of healthcare, or aren't sure if it will. (It won't).
"The problem for the Obama administration is healthcare reform is fiendishly complicated because the healthcare system is fiendishly complicated, and it is not politically feasible to tear up the system and build it again," says Humphrey Taylor, chairman of the Harris Poll. "Instead you have to build on the system that you have. When you try to build on a fiendishly complicated system, you have fiendishly complicated reforms."
Another cause of the confusion is the long and heated political debate that surrounded the bill before it was passed, Taylor says. "The level of ignorance and misinformation is sort of astounding," he says. "It seems people are still reacting to the rhetoric, not the substance of what is in the bill, because they don’t actually know what is or is not in the actual legislation."
The Harris findings jive with a National Council on Aging poll released Monday which shows that only 17% of 636 seniors surveyed knew the correct answers to more than half the factual questions posed about key aspects of new law, particularly as they relate to Medicare, and only 9% knew the correct answers to at least two-thirds of the questions.
John Commins is the news editor for HealthLeaders.