Last week marked the third anniversary of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). (Time flies, doesn't it?) So in three years, what's the one thing that we've learned?
Apparently not much.
Kaiser Family Foundation's new health tracking poll sheds some light on where the public is with health reform — and the findings go something like this: Americans are confused by what is and what is not in the law, and most don't know how, or if, it affects them.
Worse yet, uncertainty is even greater for some of the key groups the law was designed to most help: the uninsured (67 percent) and those with incomes below $40,000 (68 percent).
One interesting takeaway from the poll is that Republicans or, more generally, opponents of the law, are doing a better job talking about PPACA. The public actually knows more about the least popular parts of the law — like the individual mandate — and less about the more popular provisions.
We do hear a lot from the federal health department, of course, who have been praising PPACA for doing everything from slowing down health costs to giving people better care. But as health costs are seemingly still difficult for all of us to control — and insurers argue our premiums will continue to rise — it's hard for the public to really get a grip on what is going on.
