Polls: Early reviews for HealthCare.gov aren't pretty
Washington (CNN) - Only a minority of Americans are giving a thumbs up to the rollout of the Obamacare health care exchanges, according to a trio of new national polls.
Just 12% of people questioned in a CBS News poll released Tuesday say they think the process is going well, with nearly half saying it's not going well and nearly four in 10 saying they can't evaluate the signup process at HealthCare.gov.
The state level online exchanges, which opened for business on October 1, are intended to allow those without insurance to sign up for health care, and are a crucial part of the Affordable Care Act.
Less than three-in-10 surveyed in a Pew Research Center poll released on Monday say the online exchanges are working very well, with 46% saying they are not.
Besides the expected partisan divide, the poll also indicates a racial gap. Just 24% of white respondents, but 51% of black respondents say the exchanges are working well.
And the survey points to generational and income divides.
"Young people and those with annual household incomes of less than $30,000 are divided in their evaluations of the exchanges, while the assessments of older and more affluent Americans are more negative," says a release from Pew Research.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests that major problems with the health care law's website may just be an appetizer.
Fifty-six percent of those questioned in the survey, which was released Monday, say the website failures are a sign of broader problems to come, with four in 10 saying they are an isolated incident.
More than eight in 10 Republicans see the website failures as part of a larger problem with the measure, while most Democrats describe it as an isolated incident.
President angry with rollout
The health care law, passed along party lines in 2010 when the Democrats controlled the Senate and the House, is considered President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement.
And the President vented Monday about the website rollout.
"Nobody's madder than me about the website not working as well as it should, which means it's going to get fixed," Obama said during an appearance the White House Rose Garden.
But he didn't specify exactly what went wrong or who was to blame for the problems, which include long waits to log onto the federally administered website and maddeningly long wait times once online.
There's "no excuse for the problems," Obama added.
But he said tech industry experts were being brought in to help workers trying to fix the site.
The technical fiasco is fueling the GOP push to dismantle or defund Obamacare, and some Republicans are calling for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
In early September, barely half (51%) knew that exchanges were going to be available in their state; that has risen to nearly two-thirds (65%) today.
Website failures not affecting support for Obamacare
According to the ABC News/Washington Post poll, 46% of Americans support the law, edging up four points from last month. Forty-nine percent say they oppose the measure, down three points from September.
Forty-three percent of those questioned in the CBS News survey give Obamacare a thumbs up, a four point increase since September, with 51% saying they oppose the law, unchanged from last month.
The 42%-53% approval/disapproval rating for the measure in the Pew poll is basically unchanged from September.
A CNN/ORC International poll released Monday indicates that 41% say they favor the law, with 56% opposed to it. The 41% approval was up three points from last month, with the disapproval basically unchanged.
The CNN survey also indicates that 38% say they are against the law because they think it's too liberal, while 12% say it's not liberal enough. That means 53% either support Obamacare, or say it's not liberal enough.
The Pew survey suggests more Americans are becoming familiar with the exchanges. The percentage of people who know that the exchanges are available in their state rose from 51% early last month to nearly two thirds now.
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@ Data ... #7 and counting.
I can't comment on this polling data. I haven't tried to access the website. I do wonder how many who were polled have actually tried.
Sean Hannity's guests of the other night come to mind. Apparently, and for all their opining on the subject, they hadn't accessed the website either.
How many stories now this morning blasting the website?
Durn librul media... if only you actually existed so you could NOT print negative stories. I'll bet old fair balanced FAUX is reporting 50% positive and 50 % negative, just like their catch phrase implies.
If I watched the Hannity lie machine, I would agree. However, the republicans gave the Bush Iraq mess, now twelve years for a month long war, you would think they would give us more than three weeks to determine if the ACA is a failure.
Seven stories on the same subject in less than 3 hours. This is a higher rate than the shutdown itself, I'd wager.
WEBSITE ARMAGEDDON 2013!
Ha Lynda, you beat me to it!
We're counting, CNN, you little stinkers you! 🙂
Sort of a silly poll unless they sampled specifically for the people who matter: those who actually are using it to sign up. Angry people who don't like the law or happy people who do...but who don't actually intend to use sign up via the echange...who cares what they think? Their opinions are not operative.
And BTW, why did you skip this data from the poll, CNN? Hmmmmm?
56% of the visitors found the website very or fairly easy to use compared with 40% who said it was very or fairly difficult to use.
Trying to lean your story towards a chosen narrative perhaps?
"An ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests that major problems with the health care law's website may just be an appetizer."
No it doesn't. You phrased that terribly. It suggest that a prevailing public opinion is that this might be "an appetizer" not that it actually is. A poll can't "suggest" what you wrote it suggests.
Wow what a shocker.. Hire the cheapest firm to put an online website together that signs up people for healthcare that equates to 1/6th the entire US economy. What a great leader we have. No young people signing up and a plethora of those with preexisting conditions making premiums for current healthcare holders go way way up. Thanks for the mess Obama.. 5 years and you couldn't figure it out?
Who gives a crap. What's from stopping you from picking up a phone and speaking to an agent? Is this what you call journalism? How many stories will we get today about the dysfunction of healthcare.gov? I signed up on just fine. Just because the program has glitches doesn't mean diddly squat!!!
The bumpy road to the amusement park doesn't mean the amusement park sucks. It just means they need to fix the dam road.
"Who gives a crap. What's from stopping you from picking up a phone and speaking to an agent?"
In light of the fact that only 65% surveyed actually knew about their state exchange and the only reporting the MSM is doing is about the federal website, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that less than 20% of people know they can still sign up via phone or in person. The MSM is loving it that way.
Didn't the President came out against the rollout glitches of the ACA, I think he said that he is not sugarcoating it, so CNN this poll is a non story. What about fox news talk lies host Hannity whose interview with those six people claiming that their experiences with the ACA was disastrous to them, but they never visited the site talk about dishonest? that should be news.
Let's enlist the help of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld to solve this; they did wonders in Iraq.
"Trying to lean your story towards a chosen narrative perhaps?"
Not to sound redundant, Sniffit ... but, oh – absolutely ... comes to mind.
Obama,
General Patton, he ain't. Making Obama Care work is kinda like putting a square peg in a round whole. Sooner or later they will figure out it won't work. Shucks WE HAVE TO PASS THIS BILL TO SEE WHAT'S IN IT. Just put a bill on my desk and I will sign it.
Very bias polling. How many people surveyed actually tried using the website. They can also sign up by using the phone.
Really Fox-lite?? Another non-story........
It looks like they are bending over backwards not to appear to be "librul".
One participant in this poll had some extremely egregious complaints. He railed that he could not access the website at all from his his computer and blamed President Obama for this failure, saying, "This whole Obamacare thing is a (wait for it) train wreck!"
It was later discovered his computer had not even been plugged in and in fact was not a computer at all, rather an old GE microwave. CNN will be doing a 3 hour special on this compelling 'slice of life' story on Sunday at 8:00 p.m.
"those six people claiming that their experiences with the ACA was disastrous to them, but they never visited the site talk about dishonest? "
Not only that, it was chock full of other lies, like the dude claiming that the ACA caused him to fire employees and downsize, but he only has 4 employees so his firm isn't even subject to the ACA at all? Another person babbling about it costing more and yet it was proven she could save like 63% on her current premiums. But hey, as Chuck Todd recently stated...and this is apparently exactly what CNN and the rest of the MSM fervently believe...it's not their job to report the truth and correct the lying. Well, what do we get for the MSM throwing integrity into the proverbial toilet? A misinformed, fearful, angry, undereducated, unaware populace who likes/hates things because they don't even have the slightest clue what they are. What polls will actually show you is that a large portion of people who oppose the ACA don't even know what it entails and are full of all sorts of idiotic misinformation about it. How can you oppose something when you don't know what it is or think it's something it's not? You can't...but you can tell a pollster that you oppose it and feed the MSM narrative.
I logged on this morning. No problems!
Here's hoping that Website Armageddon Story #8 is about the antiquated placeholder code used to engineer the site.
Pro tip for those using the site: you MAY have better luck using IE as your browser.
Better yet, use the phone now, or just wait a few weeks till the code is rewritten.
The poll would only have any validity if it polled only those are actually attemtping to find coverage on the website, so the poll is worthless and indicates NOTHING!
I have a few other news flashes CNN..if you don't eat, you starve. If you don't drink water, you die of thirst. This column is a waste of time..we all know the launch was HORRENDOUS. WE NOW HAVE TO WAIT A MONTH AND SEE IF IT IMPROVES MEASURABLY.
Next up: "The website is totally broken because it shuts down whenever I hit Alt-F4. This is an outrage."
This is all George Bush's fault. Or maybe Ronald Reagan? Yes, that's it.
It is clear from the Roll-Out of Obama-Care that the two First Generation Cuban-American Senators from Texas, and Florida, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio who were deamonized by Democrats, and Republicans were absolutely Right to stop the funding of Affordable Care Act that is riddled with incompetence. In addition to Obama's failure to deliver reasonable Health Care easily accessable to Americans, the President faces a potential Deficit Limit up to $25 Trillion Dollars that will criple the American Economy sending the US in to a Deppression with Creditors calling the Debt we owe to mostly China.