Nearly a year after the health reform law passed, more than one in five Americans (22 percent) believe it was repealed, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll, PBS NewsHour reports. Nearly half of those polled thought the law was repealed or didn't answer.
Although the House voted to repeal the law last month, an early vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate failed, as expected, The Hill reports.
So what explains the poll findings?
It's possible that people lacked the time to dig into the details of the legislative process, said Kaiser Foundation President Drew Altman. Wishful thinking might also have played a role. Altman noted that Republicans were more likely to think that the law had been repealed than Democrats. Regardless, it appears the administration's PR machine could do more to better inform consumers about the reform.
Although the individual mandate is not popular, Altman said that most of the coverage expansions, including an expansion of Medicaid and insurance reforms to eliminate the worst abuses in the system, are quite popular with Americans.
To learn more:
- read the PBS NewsHour story
- here's The Hill's blog post