Survey results analyzed in:
- Issue Brief: Are Americans Finding Affordable Coverage in the Health Insurance Marketplaces?
- Issue Brief: Gaining Ground: Americans' Health Insurance Coverage and Access to Care After the Affordable Care Act's First Open Enrollment Period
Country: United States
Survey Organization: Social Science Research Solutions
Field Dates: April 9, 2014, to June 2, 2014
Sample: A nationally representative sample of 4,425 adults, ages 19 to 64
Sample Size: Overall 2,098 interviews were conducted with respondents on landline telephones and 2,327 interviews were conducted on cellular phones, including 1,481 with respondents who live in households with no landline telephone access.
Interview Method: Nationally representative telephone survey conducted in English and Spanish. The survey’s sample was designed to increase the likelihood of surveying respondents eligible for new coverage options under the ACA. Respondents in an earlier Commonwealth Fund survey from July-September 2013 who said they were uninsured or had individual coverage were asked if they could be re-contacted for the April-June 2014 survey. SSRS also re-contacted households reached through their omnibus survey of adults who were uninsured or had individual coverage prior to open enrollment. The data are weighted to correct for the stratified sample design, the use of pre-screened and re-contact respondents from the earlier surveys, the overlapping landline and cellular phone sample frames, and disproportionate nonresponse that might bias results. The data are weighted to the U.S. 19-to-64 adult population by age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, household size, geographic division, and population density using the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey and by household telephone use using the CDC’s 2012 National Health Interview Survey.
The resulting weighted sample is representative of the approximately 186.1 million U.S. adults ages 19 to 64. The survey has an overall margin of sampling error of +/-2.1 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. The landline portion of the main-sample survey achieved a 19 percent response rate and the cellular phone main-sample component achieved a 15 percent response rate. The overall response rate, including prescreened and re-contact sample was 14 percent.
At the close of the Affordable Care Act’s first open enrollment period, an estimated 9.5 million fewer U.S. adults were uninsured, according to a new Commonwealth Fund survey released today. The national uninsured rate among working age-adults dropped from 20 percent in July–September 2013 to 15 percent in April–June 2014. Most people with new coverage, either a marketplace plan or Medicaid, said they were optimistic that it would improve their ability to get health care. A majority of those who had used their new plan to get care or fill a prescription said they would not have been able to do so before.