As mllions of Ameicans have gained health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, analysts are pondering whether this change in status will have implications on how these individuals vote.
Drew Altman, President and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, believes that, despite the continuing political debate about the ACA itself, “the newly insured are unlikely to become an important electoral factor themselves.”
In an opinion column published in the Wall Street Journal, Altman says a good indicator of the future political behavior of those benefitting from the ACA is their behavior in the past, when they did not have health insurance.
Currently, just over half of the uninsured (52%) are registered to vote, compare to more than three-quarters, or 77%, for those with insurance coverage.
“Perhaps more surprising, while the uninsured shade Democratic as a group, they are a reasonably heterogeneous,” he notes. About 27% of the uninsured say they are Democrats, 13% are Republicans, and 36% are independents.
Surprising, “we also know that the uninsured are slightly less favorable toward the ACA than is the public overall,” says Altman, even though they are most likely to benefit from the ACA.
In part, he says, this is because they are unfamiliar with the law, believe the coverage will be unaffordable and don’t know about the subsidies available to them under the ACA. But it may also be because they know they may be subject to a penalty if they don’t purchase insurance.
Although a large majority (76%) of those who previously were uninsured are happy with their coverage, that may not affect how they vote, or if they will cast their ballots at all.
“It is a fair bet that in the short term the newly insured will behave politically much like the uninsured have: many will not vote, and they will continue to represent a very small slice of the electorate,” Altman argues.