Long-term uninsured people are less likely to sign up for health insurance as mandated under the health reform law despite being aware of both the penalties that come with noncompliance and the subsidies to help in its purchase, a new report found.
About 63% of respondents who reported being uninsured for a period of more than five years indicated they were unlikely to buy insurance on the health insurance exchanges compared with only 12% of that group who said they would likely enroll in a plan, according to the results of a survey of 1,000 adults between the ages of 18 and 34 conducted by international marketing consulting firm Prophet.
The purpose of the report, according to co-author Jeff Gourdji, associate partner at Prophet, was to get a sense of consumers' attitudes after their experience with the first open-enrollment period to buy health coverage through the insurance exchanges. Insurers can use the findings to more effectively market their products when the next open-enrollment period comes around in November, according to Gourdji.