A promising sign for the second round of open-enrollment under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 55 percent of uninsured Americans plan to sign up for healthcare coverage through the state and federal exchanges, according to a recent Gallup poll.
Seventy percent of uninsured Americans are aware they must pay a fine under the individual mandate of the PPACA if they do not sign up for coverage, and 35 percent said they will not get insurance and pay the fine.
However, there are approximately 30 percent of uninsured Americans who are not aware they must pay a fine if they forgo purchasing health coverage, which suggests a lack of understanding of the health reform law and its requirements, according to Gallup.
Open enrollment sign-ups could be negatively affected by the uninsured population's lack of understanding of the PPACA's coverage requirements. In addition, for those that do decide to purchase insurance through the exchanges, health literacy could have an impact, as recently released Kaiser Family Foundation survey results found 43 percent of uninsured adults under age 65 couldn't correctly identify the definition of a health insurance premium.
The Gallup poll results are based on daily tracking interviews with 976 Americans from Oct. 22 through Nov. 12.
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