Few Uninsured Are Signing Up For Obamacare

A survey has found that only 1/10th of the uninsured have signed up for Obamacare. (The deadline is March 31.) Actual numbers from HealthCare.gov and the insurance companies are hard to come by, due in part to the still-confusing application process. Also, of those who did sign up, half have not paid the first premium, so they don’t have health insurance either.

If the uninsured don’t buy the insurance, preferring to pay the fine and to go without, the whole concept of Obamacare comes apart.

This story gives the details, explaining also why we still can’t get hard numbers: New health insurance marketplaces signing up few uninsured Americans, two surveys find – The Washington Post:

The new health insurance marketplaces appear to be making little headway in signing up Americans who lack insurance, the Affordable Care Act’s central goal, according to a pair of new surveys.

Only one in 10 uninsured people who qualify for private plans through the new marketplaces enrolled as of last month, one of the surveys shows. The other found that about half of uninsured adults have looked for information on the online exchanges or planned to look.

The snapshots from the surveys released Thursday provide preliminary answers to what has been one of the biggest mysteries since HealthCare.gov and separate state marketplaces opened last fall: Are they attracting their prime audience?

[Keep reading. . .]