Starting Saturday, Americans will have just one month left to either get health insurance or, for the first time, face a fine for going without.
March begins a last-mile sprint by the White House, insurance companies, community groups, and others (including tax preparers) to sign up as many uninsured people as possible. The majority of Americans who get coverage through their jobs or Medicare can be safely oblivious, but if you don’t have health insurance, it’s time to start paying attention. So are we?
The answer is: sort of. There’s been a meaningful bump since the fall in the number of people who say they have enough information to grasp how the Affordable Care Act will affect them, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s tracking poll. Still, two out of five respondents in January say they don’t know enough. Kaiser also found a majority had no personal experience with the the law.
A separate poll by Gallup shows less movement since August. Slightly more than 30 percent say they’re “not too” or “not at all” familiar with the law, or have no opinion. Only one-in-five say they’re well-versed in Obamacare.
Both surveys also show more Americans have unfavorable views of the law than favorable. That kind of question can be tricky, of course, as Jimmy Kimmel discovered in October:
