Variation in Public Opinion About Health Reform, by Plan Type: Findings from the 2010 EBRI/MGA Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey

There is no shortage of public opinion surveys related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), enacted March 23, 2010. However, differences in public opinion among individuals with private health insurance have not been explored as they relate to type of health plan. This paper uses data from a recent survey (2010 EBRI/MGA Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey, or CEHCS) to examine how individuals with different types of health plans think health reform will affect their personal health care costs, their personal health coverage, and the quality of the health care services that they receive. Individuals with traditional health coverage, consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs), and high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) are examined. The 2010 EBRI/MGA Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey finds that relatively few people with private health insurance consider themselves knowledgeable about the PPACA, the federal health insurance reform law enacted earlier this year. Roughly half say they are somewhat, not very, or not at all knowledgeable about the law. Most individuals with private health insurance have negative expectations of how the new law will affect them personally, with a majority saying they expect it will cause prices to go up and health care coverage and quality to go down. Individuals with traditional health coverage tend to have more positive views than those with high-deductible or consumer-driven health plans--possibly because traditional health plan participants tend to identify themselves more as Democrats, while high-deductible and consumer-driven plan participants are more likely to lean Republican. Very few participants in employment-based health plans say their employer has given them any information about the new law. Also, very few expect the law will have much, if any, impact on employers’ willingness to offer health benefits, at least for the next four years. The PDF for the above title, published in the November 2010 issue of EBRI Notes, also contains the fulltext of another November 2010 EBRI Notes article abstracted on SSRN: “Retirement Plan Participation: Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Data, 2009.”