Civitas Poll: Few Sign Up for Insurance on ACA Website in NC

Oct. 29, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Francis De Luca (919) 834-2099     Francis.DeLuca@nccivitas.org

RALEIGH – A new Civitas Institute poll indicates that less than 10 percent of registered North Carolina voters have visited the HealthCare.gov website and only 3 percent reported signing up for insurance. To put it another way, 90 percent of those polled have not reported interacting with the website.

The survey of 600 registered North Carolina voters was done Oct. 20-24. The margin of error was plus-minus 4 percent.

According to government statistics, 1,346,603 people in North Carolina lack health insurance and are eligible for ACA coverage. This does not include those individuals who previously purchased their own policies and have had them canceled due to non-compliance with the new law.

“The Affordable Care Act (ACA) (a.k.a. Obamacare) is not attracting droves of people to sign up for health insurance,” said Civitas President Francis De Luca. “Our poll suggests few of 1.3 million people in North Carolina who lack health insurance have signed up.”

“And as a sign of how confusing the website is, people may be overstating how far they have gotten in the process,” he said. According to the website http://uncoverobamacare.com/enrollment, for North Carolina the reported number of people enrolled was still zero as of October 25.

On Thursday, Oct. 31, other results from the above poll will be released at our poll presentation, 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Raleigh Marriott Crabtree Valley. Topics will include voters’ views of Sen. Kay Hagan, Gov. Pat McCrory, President Obama, and Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate. (More information here.)

Text of question*:

With the newly enacted federal health care law, the federal government is running a health care exchange for individuals to purchase health insurance. Have you had any experience with the health care exchange?

9%      Total Yes

3%       Yes, I have signed up for insurance through the exchange

3%       Yes, but I was unsuccessful in accessing the health care exchange

3%       Yes, I accessed the exchange but have not signed up for insurance yet

90%     No

1%       Don’t Know

*Due to rounding, subtotals may differ from final sums.

Crosstabs here.

The Civitas Institute is a policy institute in Raleigh, N.C. More information is available at www.nccivitas.org, or contact Jim Tynen at (919) 834-2099 or james.tynen@nccivitas.org.