Health Insurance Plan Reform Public Opinion Letdown
According to the Thomson Reuters Healthcare Sentiment Index
, consumers are less optimistic about their ability to pay for health care than they were last year. American consumer confidence slipped by five points between December 2009 and July 2010. There was a brief uptick in April, after the healthcare reform law passed. However, people are still confused as to how the law can help them.Some experts blame the fact that the public is not fully aware or understanding of all of the provisions contained in the law. Consisting of over 2,000 pages of political and medical jargon, that may be understandable.
The White House promised that they would stay on message, promoting its benefits in a clearly understandable manner in order to shore up support. Individual aspects, including the extended access to an employee's health insurance plan by their dependents until the age of 26 and the upcoming ban on denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, are widely popular.
Unfortunately for Democrats, things have not worked out exactly as planned. Other issues, most notably the Gulf oil spill and continued high unemployment rate, have served to prevent the Obama administration from making the full sell. At the same time, opponents of the legislation have continued providing negative publicity. Therefore, the promise that the American public would view the law more favorably several months it was passed (and had time to sink in) has not been realized.
Some thinktanks also speculate that many felt a letdown after the well-publicized debates prior to the Affordable Care Act passing the House and Senate. The hoopla may have made it seem that their health insurance situation would change immediately. In reality, even the earliest effective provisions would take several months to implement, and those alone will not solve their problems.
In terms of 2010 election impact, most predict that health insurance plan reform will have relatively little impact. The larger economy will most likely be most important to voters. However, it is notable that registered Republicans were found to have more confidence in their future ability to afford health care in the next three months than either Democrats or independents.
Health Insurance Plan Reform Public Opinion Letdown
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