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December 16, 2013 at 04:12 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans who already have coverage are blaming rising premiums and deductibles on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
There are signs that the HealthCare.gov federal PPACA exchange enrollment system is working better, but about half of the Americans with private coverage who participated in a new Associated Press-GfK poll said their policies will be changing next year — mostly for the worse.
Employers were already moving toward leaner coverage before PPACA along, but 77 percent of the poll participants blame the upcoming changes on PPACA.
Sixty-nine percent said their premiums will be going up, and 59 percent said annual deductibles or co-payments are increasing.
Only 21 percent of those with private coverage said their plan is expanding to cover more types of medical care, though coverage of preventive care at no charge to the patient has been required by the law for the past couple of years.
Fourteen percent said coverage for spouses is being restricted or eliminated, and 11 percent said their plan is being discontinued.
Political leanings seemed to affect perceptions of eroding coverage, with larger majorities of Republicans and independents saying their coverage will be affected.
More than 60 percent of the participants said they disapprove of President Obama’s handling of health care.
But, when the survey firm asked participants which party they trust more to handle health care, 32 percent named the Democrats and just 22 percent named the Republicans.
The AP-GfK Poll was conducted Dec. 5-9 and involved online interviews with 1,367 adults. The survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for all respondents.
The poll was conducted after Obama administrations said they had greatly improved the HealthCare.gov website and states said they had greatly improved their enrollment systems.
