The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
March 23 marked the first anniversary of President Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, which has caused a lot of people to ask some interesting questions about how well Americans understand what the new law has done and will do.
The Kaiser Family Foundation included a 10-question “pop quiz” in their December Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, and the results are truly a must-read.
According to Kaiser, their quiz asked Americans whether they thought a series of 10 provisions were included in the new law, ranging from five items that are part of the law (i.e., Medicaid expansion, changes in private health insurance) to five items that popped up at times in the larger debate but are not in the Affordable Care, such as coverage for illegal immigrants and so-called “death panels.”
The most well-known provisions of the law were the subsidies to help low- and moderate-income Americans purchase insurance, the prohibition on insurers from denying coverage based on a person’s health or medical history and the tax credits to small businesses that offer health insurance to their employees—between 65 and 72 percent of participants knew about these provisions. Six in 10 (59 percent) Americans, however, think the law creates a government-run health plan (it does not), and roughly two in three (65 percent) believe all businesses will be required to provide health insurance (when businesses with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from this requirement).
In the coming months, in collaboration with the Center for Rural Affairs, Prairie Fire will examine more deeply what the Affordable Care Act means to Nebraskans. For now, Prairie Fire readers can get a taste of what’s to come by seeing how their knowledge of the law compares to other Americans. To read the pop quiz results, visit www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8148.pdf.
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