Though only 21% of uninsured Americans have visited new healthcare exchange websites, a vast majority of them are having negative experiences with them. This is according to a new Gallup poll that shows nearly two-thirds (63%) of uninsured Americans who have visited healthcare exchange sites have had a negative experience with them.
The poll surveyed over 1,500 uninsured Americans about their experiences with the new healthcare.gov website and other state healthcare exchange websites. A large majority of them rated their experience with such websites as negative, with 33% stating their experience was “negative” and a further 30% going so far as to say their experience was “very negative.”
Only 34% of those surveyed had had a positive experience with a healthcare exchange website, with only 5% of respondents saying they had a “very positive” experience.
It is worth noting that Gallup did not survey enough uninsured Americans to separate their feelings on state and federal healthcare exchanges separately. It has been reported that while the federal healthcare.gov website has been plagued with technical glitches, other websites in states such as Kentucky and Arkansas have functioned as intended.
That said, confusion over the new system means that many uninsured Americans don’t even know whether they used the federal site or a state exchange. Over two-thirds (36%) of those surveyed stated they were “unsure” whether they had visited (or at least tried to visit) a state or federal healthcare exchange website. Only 28% surveyed were sure they had visited the federal site, with a further 14% having only visited a state exchange. Another 18% stated that they had visited both a federal and a state healthcare exchange website.
With the confusion and frustration evident in these poll results, it is clear that the healthcare.gov rollout has been a bit of a fiasco. President Obama has promised that the federal website will be fixed, but with congress now grumbling about significant changes to the Affordable Care Act, time is running out for the current rollout plan.