Poll: 12% Say Obamacare Will Have Positive Impact on their Family

Poll: 12% Say Obamacare Will Have Positive Impact on their Family

on Mon, 16 Sep 2013

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll reveals Americans are unconvinced that Obamacare will improve the country's healthcare system. Only 12% say the law will have a positive effect on their family and even the uninsured are skeptical Obamacare will do them any good.

Confusion surrounds the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act enacted in 2010, especially among the uninsured. Among this group, three-quarters of respondents say they do not understand or understood very little of the new law. Enthusiasm for program registers at a dismal level, as less than one-third say (31%) say the law is a good idea. Merely one-third of those who are uninsured say they are "fairly" or "very" likely to use the new healthcare exchanges.

Even worse, only 23% of all respondents say the law will benefit the healthcare system and paltry12% believe the law will have a positive impact on their family.

The public is not predicting positive developments arising from the law, with more than half (52%) expecting healthcare costs to rise.  One consequence of the unpopular law is that businesses have already started pushing people off their current health insurance plans and are cutting hours to avoid the law's mandate to provide coverage to 30 hour+ workers.  As three-quarters (73%) arealready satisfied with their current healthcare coverage, the net result of Obamacare appears to be strictly detrimental: higher healthcare costs, fewer work hours for employees and those who are satisfied with their health insurance, losing that coverage.