People Still Want Their “Substandard” Health Plans

The Kaiser Family Foundation has released some interesting poll results regarding people’s impressions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA; aka ObamaCare; aka destroyer of American healthcare; aka stepping stone to socialized medicine).  The Providence Journal‘s Felice Freyer tweeted the poll by highlighting the suggestion that “those most likely to enroll in Obamacare don’t mind limited choice of providers, latest Kaiser poll finds.”

By “those most likely,” she means people who are “uninsured or purchase own insurance,” and I think it layers in an erroneous assumption about their emotions to say that they “don’t mind limited choice.”  What they actually say is that they would “rather have… a plan that costs less money but has a more limited range of doctors and hospitals” than one “that costs more money but allows [them] to see a broader range of doctors and hospitals.”

That’s quite a different statement than reported, and it ought to raise questions about the presumptions underlying ObamaCare.  When it became obvious that President Obama brazenly lied to the American people about being able to keep their plans and doctors, his partisans and progressives took up the talking point that just a few people on “substandard” plans were not being permitted to keep them.

But to people who chose those plans out of the available options — who determined that at this particular time in their lives, having money for other purposes outweighed having more-comprehensive insurance — the plans weren’t “substandard.”  It looks like a majority of health-exchange users are inclined to make the same decision, to the degree that the government allows it.

This conclusion ties in with the chart that I think actually ought to be the headline about the poll. About two-thirds of the way down the page, we find that the uninsureds’ opinion of the ACA has swung dramatically since November, from 39% unfavorable and 36% favorable to 56% unfavorable and 22% favorable.

For some of them, at least, the government is not allowing the options that they would want, which might be cheaper plans that fall below the “standards” of our incompetent superstar president.

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