Many don't know healthcare reform law status: Kaiser

By Jerry Geisel, Crain News Service

MENLO PARK, Calif. (May 1, 2013) — More than three years after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), public confusion about the 2010 healthcare reform law is widespread, according to a survey released April 30.

Forty-two percent of those surveyed by the Menlo Park-based Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation didn't know the status of the law, answered incorrectly when asked about PPACA's status or declined to respond. Some 59 percent answered correctly that PPACA is the law of the land and is being implemented.

For example, 12 percent of respondents said the law was repealed by Congress. While the House of Representatives last year passed a repeal measure, the Senate did not act on the proposal.

In addition, 7 percent of respondents said the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the law.

In fact, the Supreme Court in June 2012 let stand a key provision in the law that will require most U.S. residents to enroll in a qualified healthcare plan starting next year or pay a financial penalty. The justices, though, struck down a provision that would have withdrawn federal funding of a state's Medicaid program if a state declined to expand it to more lower-income individuals as laid out by PPACA.

Another 23 percent of respondents in the Kaiser survey said they didn't know the status of the law or declined to answer the question.

This report appeared in Business Insurance magazine, a Chicago-based sister publication of Tire Business.