Poll: Public expects big changes sooner than Congress plans

"Democrats are promising significant changes in the health insurance market with the passage of their health care legislation, but they may not be able to deliver as quickly as most Americans would expect," CBS News reports. "A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that about half of Americans think that if Democrats pass their reform proposals, help for the uninsured and consumer protections in the insurance market would kick in within a year. In reality, most of the reform provisions" would not go into effect until 2013 (KHN is a program of the foundation) (Condon, 10/22).

The New York Times: Asked in the Kaiser poll "if Congress passed a bill this year when they would expect people without insurance to begin getting help buying coverage, 49 percent of the respondents said this year or next. Twenty-five percent said three years from now, and 11 percent said 'further in the future than that.' Asked how soon they would expect health insurance companies would have to begin accepting customers with pre-existing conditions, 51 percent said this year or next. Twenty-three percent said three years from now, and 9 percent said further into the future" (Seelye, 10/22).

---

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.