The Affordable Care Act or more widely known as Obamacare is now in its third open enrolment period which started last month and critics are once again on the rise in listing the Act's supposed shortcomings.
The latest reviews for Obamacare find that cost as many believed to be its biggest downfall may not actually be the most apparent shortcoming as the lack of education for its consumers which are the citizens of the United States.
An article tackled about a poll conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation named "December 2015 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll" which suggests that majority of Americans have very little idea about the government's health insurance regulation.
For starters, only seven percent from the uninsured Americans knows the deadline of enrolment for this period which is deemed as basic information about Obamacare. Enrolment began on November 1, 2015 and will end on January 31, 2016.
Due to the shifting of enrolments per year, many citizens especially those that are uninsured get confused about when they are supposed to register. The poll also revealed that 80% of the uninsured population were not contacted by anyone within the past six months about enrolling themselves for health insurance.
Obamacare regulates that everyone should register for the said health insurance or they will face a penalty. Even then, 27% of the respondents think that it is not a requirement or that the mandate does not apply to them. Half of them believed that they qualify for an exemption.
The penalty for those who did not purchase a health insurance is 2.5% of an individual's modified adjusted gross income or more than $695. The foundation as stated in the article predicts that the penalty will go up to $969 per non-compliant household next year.
The said poll generally gives the impression that majority of the Americans apparently does not like Obamacare but that they are required to register and pay the coverage fee even if low-risk groups such as men in good health condition and are not responsible for anyone but themselves have little use for it.
Overall, the poll implies that the health sector or the administration itself should send out more people to provide information about Obamacare targeting uninsured Americans.
