Poll: Health exchange rollout gets poor reviews

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government's new health insurance marketplaces are drawing lots of rotten tomatoes in early reviews, but people are at least checking them out.

Seven percent of Americans report that somebody in their household has tried to sign up for insurance through the health care exchanges, according to an AP-GfK poll.

While that's a small percentage, it could represent more than 20 million people.

Three-fourths of those who tried to sign up reported problems, though, and that's reflected in the underwhelming reviews.

Overall, just 7 percent of Americans say the rollout of the health exchanges has gone well. Far more deem it a flop.

Among those who've actually tested out the system, three-quarters of those polled said they've experienced problems trying to sign up. Only about 1 in 10 succeeded in buying health insurance.

Overall, the poll found, 40 percent of Americans said the launch of the insurance markets hasn't gone well, 20 percent said it's gone somewhat well and 30 percent didn't know what to say. Just 7 percent said the launch had gone "very well" or "somewhat well."

Even among those who support the president's health care overhaul law, just 19 percent think the rollout has gone extremely well or very well. Forty percent say it's gone somewhat well, and 18 percent think not too well or not well at all.

The survey offers an early snapshot on use of the new health insurance exchanges set up by states and the federal government under Obama's Affordable Care Act. Thirty-six states are using the federal government's site, HealthCare.gov, which the Obama administration says has had millions of unique visitors. The administration has declined to release enrollment statistics, saying that will be done monthly.

The Census estimates that about 48 million Americans lacked coverage in 2012, or more than 15 percent of the population.

Starting next year, the law requires virtually all Americans to have insurance or face a tax penalty after a coverage gap of three months.

Opinions are sharply divided on the overall framework of the law: 28 percent of Americans support it, 38 percent are opposed, and 32 percent don't have an opinion either way, the poll found. When asked specifically whether the government should be able to require all Americans to buy insurance or face a fine, only about 3 in 10 Americans agreed, and 68 percent were opposed.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted Oct. 3-7 using KnowledgePanel, GfK's probability-based online panel. It involved online interviews with 1,227 adults. The survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points for all respondents. For results among the 76 respondents who attempted to use health insurance markets, the margin of error is plus or minus 13.5 percentage points.

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