According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s Kaiser Health Tracking Poll released on Thursday, public opinion regarding the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ACA), which passed three years ago, continues to be extremely unpopular with a large majority of United States citizens throughout the country. The bill - which became the major issue of President Barack Obama’s first term as president and likely the most strongly debated issue in Congress and amongst the populous of the nation over the past four years – is still not fully implemented with the incredibly huge number details that the program will realize by the time it takes full effect next year.
Kaiser, a non-profit organization that conducts totally nonpartisan polls on health matters and therefore gives a highly-respected public’s opinion on health care issues, reveals after three years of Obamacare there are only 37 percent of Americans who approve of the all-encompassing bill’s passage at this time. Along political lines 68 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable impression of Obamacare, 58 percent of Democrats have a favorable impression, and – among the deciding non-big political party supporters – the Independents surveyed reveals that only 31 percent of them have a favorable view of the law while 45 percent do not like it or want it.
Back in 2010, United States Rep. Nancy Pelosi made her infamous comment regarding the Affordable Care Act by insisting that Americans would know what’s in the bill when it passes. Three years after the bill’s passage, however, this has not held true. The survey shows that 67 percent of uninsured persons under the age of 65 – those ineligible for Medicare – still have no clue as to what the law means for them, personally. Overall, the percentage of persons who say they don’t understand how the law will impact them is at 57 percent.
Beyond public perception, a CBS News piece states that even though a major component of Obamacare is the increase of Medicaid – the federal and state shared governmental program for some low-income persons as well as the disabled – the states have not been given a deadline to begin this component. Basically in defiance, 13 states have said they will absolutely not go along with this component of the program. Yet, President Barack Obama and his administration insist that these 13 states will join in after they supposedly see the benefits of the program. Some of these states have come up with alternate methods of dealing with Medicare versus private insurance for low-income people.
Also, there are 32 states of which the federal government will need to come up with an exchange for the plan. This means that plans are yet to be determined in most of the states which will allow the purchase of private insurance. States were given that option.
The only positive-apparent portion of the current data suggests in a debatable fashion that 6 million persons will save $6.1 billion on prescription drugs. The media has continually suggested that Obamacare is going to cost Americans much more than first believed, and persons in the United States Congress who are still threatening to fight the bill say that Obama care will have an incredibly negative impact on the national debt in the years ahead.
Comments