Among uninsured Americans who plan to get health insurance, 56 percent intend to do so through a government health insurance exchange under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to a Gallup poll.
That figure — which is based on interviews with more than 1,500 uninsured Americans — has steadily increased from 45 percent this past October, when Gallup began tracking the intentions of the uninsured. According to the most recent poll, 53 percent of all uninsured Americans say they plan on getting health insurance, down from 60 percent of the then-uninsured population in December.
The diminishing size of the uninsured population could be just as responsible for that decline as shifting intentions are, according to Gallup. The U.S. uninsured rate showed a modest decline from 17.3 percent in December 2013 to 16.1 percent this month, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. It's unclear, however, whether the PPACA caused that change or if other factors are responsible.
The increase in people who intend to use government exchanges to get health insurance could be a result of improvements made to the federal health exchange website, HealthCare.gov, which encountered numerous technical issues following its launch this past October.
Still, only 23 percent of the uninsured say they have actually visited or attempted to visit a federal or state health insurance exchange website, and 67 percent say they are very unfamiliar with the exchanges.
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