A new Harvard University poll finds a majority of millennials (57 percent) disapprove of Obamacare. The news comes on the second day of President Obama’s latest effort to sell the health care law to the public at large and young people in particular.
The results from Harvard’s Institute of Politics, which surveyed 2,089 young adults aged 18 to 29, found only 18 percent of millennials who thought Obamacare would improve their care. Less than one-third said they’re likely to enroll in the Obamacare insurance exchanges.
Whether pollsters referred to the law as the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, most young adults (50 percent and 51 percent, respectively) believed their health care costs would go up because of the President’s signature domestic legislation.
Millennials, who played a critical role in the election and re-election of Obama, now rate the President at the lowest level since he took office in 2009, with 41 percent approval, the poll found. Millennials named the economy as their top issue, followed by government spending, jobs, taxes, and health care.
This study comes after Gallup reported earlier this week that young adults are the least knowledgeable age group with details about Obamacare, with 37 percent saying they were not familiar with the health law.
As Gallup and others have pointed out, Obamacare’s success depends on young Americans enrolling in the federal and state insurance exchanges. The law needs healthy, young enrollees to subsidize the cost for older and sicker Americans who are not charged exponentially higher rates.
But does familiarity really help Obamacare? Gallup noted that Americans who are familiar with Obamacare are significantly more likely (59 percent) to oppose the law than those who aren’t familiar (43 percent).
What’s possible is that as they learn more about it, Americans are sick of Obamacare and its disastrous impact on the economy. They could be ready for real alternatives that bolster the doctor-patient relationship, lower health care costs, and offer more choice and freedom.
