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Poll: Most Americans Haven’t Directly Benefited From Obamacare

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Juliegrace Brufke Capitol Hill Reporter
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The vast majority of Americans have not benefited from Obamacare, according to a poll released by National Public Radio, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Monday.

56 percent of Americans polled said they don’t believe the Affordable Care Act has directly impacted them. Of those surveyed who said it did have a direct impact, more said health care reform has been overall detrimental rather than positive — coming in at 25 percent and 15 percent respectively.

Kansas and Ohio had the highest percentage of residents to say the law negatively affected their states, with 39 percent in the Sunflower State and 35 percent in the Buckeye State having poor views of Obamacare.

Most of those surveyed said high costs are a problem in their states, and project costs going up in the future.

“Survey results also indicate that health care costs cause serious financial problems for more than a quarter of Americans, more than forty percent of whom report spending all or most of their personal savings on large medical bills,” the study reads. “Notably, about one in five adults in the U.S. do not believe they get good value for what they pay toward the cost of their care, and about one in five say they struggle to afford prescription drugs.”

In terms of quality, just 33 percent said their care was excellent, 46 percent said it was good and 18 percent said it was fair or poor. People had a less favorable view of the national health care system than state health care — two out three of those surveyed said their state’s rated fair to poor compared to three out of five giving the national system a poor rating.

“Most adults in the U.S. also say health care costs are a major problem in their state and more than half believe state costs have increased in the past two years,” the poll said. “In terms of health insurance costs, more than a third of U.S. adults believe their health insurance co-pay, deductible and premium costs have increased in the past two years, while only about one in six say the same of their benefits.”

Additionally, 13 percent said it has become harder to see a doctor since the law was implemented.

The poll is based on 1,002 phone interviews with adults across the country from Sept. 8 to Nov. 9, 2015 and leaves a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percent.

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