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Poll: 73 percent think Congress doesn’t understand health care

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After just over two months of Obamacare, Americans still aren’t buying it.

Seventy-three percent of Americans believe members of Congress just don’t understand the health-care system — or the impact of federal health-care laws on regular Americans, according to Reason-Rupe poll.

While 21 percent think the average member of Congress understands the issues “somewhat well,” just four percent are willing to give Congress the “very well” stamp of approval.

The list of problems that have arisen since the very first day of Obamacare’s launch have eaten away at the support of the program. Apart from the troubled technical launch of HealthCare.gov, over five million Americans have lost their insurance coverage because the plans don’t meet stringent new requirements for plans that Obamacare has made mandatory.

A massive uptick in Medicaid enrollments due to Medicaid expansions in some states and heightened publicity for the program have flooded its enrollment lists, but private insurance enrollment in the exchanges has lagged far behind.

And now reports of doctors and hospitals not covered by exchange plans — a longstanding concern for Medicare and Medicaid — is the newest cause for concern. The Financial Times reported this week that top hospital systems won’t be covered by most insurance plans sold on exchanges in New York, Texas and California.

Republicans skewed even more unimpressed with Congress’s understanding of the realities of the health-care system, unsurprisingly, but a majority of Democrats also have little faith in Congress. A full 65 percent charged that members of Congress understand the health-care market either “not too well” or “not well at all.”

It’s possible the underwhelming implementation of Obamacare is changing Americans thinking about the federal government’s abilities over all. While Americans think the Congress that wrote and passed the law isn’t quite qualified enough to be reforming the health-care system, they’re also disappointed in the Obama administration for failing to set the law up right.

Forty-seven percent of respondents said Obamacare’s rough rollout made them less confident in government’s ability to solve problems — and 54 percent agree that the government is “burdensome” and “impedes the ability of people to improve their lives.”

The Obama administration took another hit Wednesday with the release of November’s enrollment total of just 365,000 consumers, less than half its goal for the first two months of the enrollment period.

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