Young Adults Unaware of ObamaCare ( A C A ) Insurance Exchanges (581 hits)
Only 27% of young adults said they were aware of the Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges that are launching Oct. 1, a survey released Wednesday showed.
Furthermore, those most likely to benefit from the ACA's exchanges and expanded coverage are the least likely to be aware of the exchanges, the liberal Commonwealth Fund said in the survey "Covering Young Adults Under the Affordable Care Act."
Just 19% of young adults who were uninsured in the last year and 18% of low-income adults were aware of the exchanges -- or marketplaces, as they are sometimes called -- according to the survey.
"These facts are concerning because young adults as a group have some of the highest uninsured rates and therefore stand to gain a lot from knowing about their options for affordable health coverage," Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, MD, told reporters on a conference call.
The low awareness could also be damaging for the ACA as a whole, health experts said, since insurers need the young, healthy premium payers to offset the costs of the older, sicker, and more expensive new enrollees. ...
The exchanges will serve as a forum for the uninsured and small business employees to comparison-shop for plans. While the exchanges are open to all without employer-sponsored coverage, those making between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty line will be eligible for federal tax credits to help defray to cost of insurance.
..."If young, healthy people do not enroll, premiums will be much higher for those that do," David Howard, PhD, associate professor of health policy and management at Emory University in Atlanta, told MedPage Today. "Efforts to publicize the exchanges are just getting off the ground, but clearly the federal government and participating states have their work cut out for them between now and January 1, when coverage becomes effective.""...
