Via the Hill:
ObamaCare customers rated their satisfaction over the last year as 696 out of 1,000, compared to the 679-point rating by customers with employer-based plans, according to a large survey by the consumer research firm J.D. Power.
Customer satisfaction has increased sharply from ObamaCare’s tumultuous first year.
New enrollees rated their experience at 670 — a significant 55 points higher than the previous year, when ObamaCare exchanges were plagued by website failures.
People were more likely to be satisfied by ObamaCare if they had already enrolled in coverage. They gave even higher marks if they had auto-enrolled in their plans this year, with a rating of 744 out of 1,000.
And down goes another talking point knocked out by reality.
This is wild speculation on my part, but I think there could be a couple of things going on. The first is that the Exchange plans are far more transparent as to what is being bought. People see the total price, the price they pay and the trade-offs that they make to get to that point. Those trade-offs are widely available although not always easily interpretable. Employer sponsored insurance is nowhere near as transparent. If you’re lucky you’re offered two insurers offering two or three plans apiece and you’re not quite sure why those plans are the ones being offered nor why the rates are what they are.
The second nugget was interesting; people who auto-re-enrolled had very high satisfaction. I can think of a couple of different reasons without any actual evidence. The first is that auto-enrollment is simplicity in and of itself. Secondly, people will have had time to figure out how their insurance actually works with all of its quirks while employer sponsored coverage will often change plans in order to save six bucks per member per month.
This thing might actually work as intended…
Baud
You’ll know we’ve won when The Hill stops calling it Obamacare.
OzarkHillbilly
I suppose the day is coming when employers will stop providing health insurance and just give a stipend to go towards health care and every one will buy it on the ACA website. Provided the Supremes don’t gut it, the GOP loses an election or 2, and there are some changes to the law as well.
A man can dream, can’t he?
WereBear
@Baud: I’ll never stop calling it Obamacare.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: At that point, I’d blame Obama.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
A man had better dream, or what’s tomorrow for?
Villago Delenda Est
The Doom of the GOP Is written in these words.
Cervantes
I appreciate your optimism.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes: Amen to that.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: President Obama calls it Obamacare so I don’t mind that the media calls it that.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
I hope they call it Obamacare forever. I’m saying they’ll stop once they realize people think it’s a good thing.
maurinsky
RE: your final sentence – one of the big complaints I heard from people opposed to ACA was that your plan might change. I’ve been working full time since 1988, and I think maybe once or twice in that time, my plan DIDN’T change. It was a bizarre complaint from my perspective.
This year, not only did my employer sponsored plan change, but our insurer issued at least 6 different ID cards before getting us the correct ones!
Andrew Sprung
I do worry that a lot of auto-enrollers may not know that they’re on the hook for higher premiums this year whether because a) the premium went up, b) the benchmark went down, or c) their own income went up. A and B can be deadly combo.
WereBear
@Baud: Oh, you are totally right. But I think it’s branded, and we’ll be the ones to keep it going.
Eric S.
I said a very long time ago that the Obamacare branding was going to come back and bite the GOP in the ass. Millions who didn’t have insurance would gain it and know exactly who to thank.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@OzarkHillbilly: Destroying Obamacare would be political suicide at this point. So it will be Red State old ladies with signs saying “Get the governments out of my ACA” and GoP politicians hailing Mit Romney as the wise elder statesmen for coming up with the idea. By 2020 Obama will be the last white Republican male president in the conservative narrative.
Richard Mayhew
@Andrew Sprung: I’m betting that by now, 5 monthly bills people will know exactly what they are getting, and the people who had premium bill shock had January and February to enroll in different plans… We know that there was a very active market and lots of switching, so I think a lot of that happened by people who saw their initial bills and said “screw that, I’m getting something else….”
It is a concern, but on a scale of 1-10 (1 is the ID card is late and looks ugly, 10 is NFIB v. Sebelius getting decided the other way), I would put that concern at a 3 or a 4.
Richard Mayhew
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I figure that transformation won’t be complete until 2028, but I agree with your basic analysis.
OzarkHillbilly
@Richard Mayhew: You are hopelessly optimistic, Richard.
Mike E
@Andrew Sprung: Not this enrollee…I kept the same price point by switching to another silver plan (with a high deductible, alas).
WereBear
I’ll say this for my own employer-provided insurance; it ultimately worked as it is supposed to, but between the incompetence at the clinic and the incompetence at the insurer level, I was the one who worked hard to make it so.
But then again, any corporation I deal with these days seems to “work” that way. I have to figure out which department to speak to, I have to figure out the chain of events which has to occur, I have to find the right forms, speak to the right people, and harass the others until it gets done.
I should be putting these organizational skills into the market and getting a good price for them. But corporations have harnessed them for free.
Baud
@WereBear: Yeah, and all that work you put into it shows up as corporate efficiency!
WereBear
@Baud: I know! It really frosts me!
gvg
I don’t know but a lot of people like stability as long as they aren’t being ripped off. I have had the same auto insurance company for 30 years. Very few accidents and good results, other companies have occaisionally been a few bucks cheaper when I checked but not much and much worse service rep. Only one accident was my fault but depending on what the other guy had/did my insurere was involved and gave good advice in different scenarios.
My health insurance has been the same for 20 years since I finally got in with a stable employer. It had a goodish rep but I didn’t get sick so I wasn’t testing it and I did know that was a concern. 2 years ago I got cancer and I found out it was good insurance. I had a lot of $40 copays and one $200 surgery charge. some $7 to $20 prescription fees. Nothing else. Lots of tests had no copays at all. I probably won’t change in the future because now I know it works. My costs didn’t add up to enough to itemize on the tax return. State of Florida AvMed if anyone is interested.
Elizabelle
I heart Obamacare.
Even though it’s more expensive than it needs to be in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with the GOP ruling the legislature and keeping us away from that nasty Medicaid expansion.
I will always call it Obamacare, too.
Benw
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: remember Obama praising Reagan during Obama’s first campaign? Can’t wait for those quotes to get dusted off and repeated. “He’s the spiritual successor to Reagan!” Because yeah, they’re stuck with Obamacare.
Amir Khalid
At this point Obamacare isn’t a slur on PPACA anymore, I reckon. Did the man himself not say, in response to the label: “Damn right, I care”?
Shana
@Villago Delenda Est: The doom of the GOP indeed, which is why they’ve fought so hard to make people think it’s a terrible thing. They knew once it got on its feet they would have no chance of repealing it.
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: Yes, and it was AWESOME. As best I can remember, it was:
Since
“And down goes another talking point knocked out by reality”
Like reality has ever mattered when it comes to Obamacare
Fair Economist
I think having more control over your insurance has a lot to do with liking Obamacare more than private plans. If your Exchange plan mistreats you, you can threaten to leave. But if your employer plan mistreats you, you have to beg Human Resources to intervene, and can’t really know whether they did a good job. People like being in control.
Ruckus
@Andrew Sprung:
Which is different how from any employer provided or individually purchased plan?
Last time I had employer provided insurance we got a notice once a year that our coshare cost was being adjusted. It was never adjusted down. Some years not only did the cost go up but the coverage changed dramatically. Never for the better.
When I was an employer before that I had to waste many hours trying to figure out which plans out of 20 or 30 would be better for my employees. None of the companies policies could be directly compared, and I think that was by design. But costs always went up, benefits always went down.
But now the purchaser of the insurance (crappy insurance btw) gets directly informed about changes and can, without a dramatic amount of work or graduate degree in mathematics make purchasing decisions. That’s much better, maybe not the best but much better.