Tired of waiting for the federal government to issue updates on the progress, or lack of it, being made by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act? Welcome to the Health Reform Monitoring Survey, “a quarterly survey of the nonelderly population that explores the value of cutting-edge Internet-based survey methods to monitor the ACA before data from federal government surveys are available.”
Brought to us by funders and researchers at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute, the HRMS survey recently looked at the Obama administration’s latest effort to connect more uninsured Americans with affordable coverage.
That initiative was based on the idea that, if more people realize at tax time that they’ll have to pay a penalty if they don’t have coverage, a certain percentage of those people would acquire coverage if they had a window in which to do so. Thus was created a special second enrollment period for the 2015 coverage year.
HRMS took a quick look at how well this grace period was faring. What researchers found was that “as of March 29, 2015, only 36,000 individuals have taken advantage of this option.”
That’s in the entire U.S. Not a huge turnout for this well-marketed special enrollment period.
But then again, HRMS said, “that could change as the tax deadline approaches.” Lots of folks don’t file till the last minute, and the numbers might jump right around April 15, the study said.
Meantime, other data was mined from the survey. The survey found that about half of uninsured nonelderly adults plan to file a 2014 federal income tax return.
So how likely are these folks to take the action desired by the White House? The survey asked them what they knew about the requirement to either have coverage or pay a penalty.
“Among the uninsured adults who may file a federal tax return, 28.8 percent said they had heard nothing at all about the requirement to report insurance coverage status when they file, 18.7 percent said they had heard a little about the requirement, and 50 percent said they had heard some or a lot about it,” the report said. “These findings add to the growing body of evidence that even after five years and almost two complete open enrollment periods, there is a continued need for outreach and education efforts to improve awareness of some of the ACA’s basic features.”
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
