Poll: More uninsured view Obamacare favorably

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Poll: More uninsured view Obamacare favorably

by Joan McCarter

Despite glitches at HealthCare.gov, despite a non-stop onslaught of news stories about cancellation letters and "Obamacare took my insurance away," yet another poll shows that Obamacare isn't losing support but in fact is gaining in popularity. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows a modest gain in overall support for the law, from 44 percent in September to 47 percent in October. But what's significant in that number is where a chunk of support is coming from: the uninsured.

The uninsured view the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, more favorably since online marketplaces opened—44 percent compared with 37 percent in September, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll. It found that 56 percent oppose the program compared with 63 percent in September.

A higher proportion of the uninsured also said they are interested in buying insurance on the exchanges, with 42 percent in October, saying they were likely to enroll compared with 37 percent in September. The results have a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

"The launch of the exchanges, that's the first real world event for a lot of people," said Chris Jackson, an Ipsos pollster. "There's been this sense that once people got familiar with it, public opinion would start to move in its direction."

The jump in insured not just supporting the law but being interested in enrolling is pretty huge. For months, monthly Kaiser Health Tracking polls have shown that the uninsured just weren't being reached with the information they needed. As recently as September, Kaiser found that just one in eight among the uninsured knew that they could start shopping on October 1, and that 67 percent said they didn't have enough information to know if it would helpful to them. While it's difficult to extrapolate between differing polls, 42 percent expressing real interest in signing up is very encouraging.

If the administration does get HealthCare.gov up and running smoothly by November 30, as promised, and if the 17 million who are eligible for tax credits to help pay for insurance sign up and get those subsidies, expect to see approval numbers continue to climb ever upwards. And expect Republicans to become even more hysterical over the law.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/06/1253569/-Poll-More-uninsured-view-Obamacare-nbsp-favorably

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