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September 27, 2013 at 07:46 AM
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A national health policy nonprofit on Thursday announced it is making California the focal point of a long-term research project to examine whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) lives up to expectations for the uninsured.
The Kaiser Family Foundation released the initial results of interviews with 2,000 randomly selected Californians who had lacked health insurance for at least two months.
The study will follow the respondents for two years, as they examine their options under the federal health care law. The act reaches its most notable public milestone Tuesday when the exchanges that act as marketplaces for insurance shopping open for business.
The initial study, conducted from mid-July to the end of August, found a relatively favorable response regarding expectations, with about 40 percent of those who are uninsured believing PPACA will improve their ability to get affordable health insurance. Yet it also found a huge communication gap between the law’s boosters and those who could benefit from it: About seven in 10 uninsured Californians told researchers they did not have enough information to understand how the law will affect their families.
California is home to roughly 15 percent of the nation’s uninsured residents. About 7 million people in the state were without health insurance at some point in 2012, including about 6 million adults.
Of that number, 5.5 million are expected to be able to participate in the health insurance exchange in California based on their income and immigration status, according to data contained in the Kaiser report from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
High costs and loss of a job were the most frequented reasons cited for going without health insurance.
California represents a credible laboratory to study the effects of the federal law because of its sheer size and diversity, and because the state has embraced PPACA, said Mollyann Brodie, director of survey research at Kaiser Family Foundation headquarters in Menlo Park. The state’s health benefits exchange, called Covered California, is seen as a bellwether for the rollout of open enrollment nationwide.
While the uninsured and self-insured can begin enrolling Tuesday, actual coverage starts Jan. 1.
