Karen Cyphers: Will young people embrace Obamacare?

As a concept, Americans aren’t wholly displeased with the goals or intent of Obamacare.   But it seems that the more you know about the law, the less pleased you are.

This relationship between familiarity with the Affordable Care Act and approval of the law was published last week following a late-August Gallup poll, and the trend applies regardless of partisanship or age.

This creates a quandary for the Obama administration and Affordable Care Act allies. Were the battle to be fought purely on public opinion, advocates would be wise to leave folks in the dark and speak only in generalities.

Yet for the plan to succeed — both in providing affordable coverage and demonstrating that it can be done without sinking the fiscal ship — people need to enroll in plans.

This takes outreach, and a lot of it.

The Obama administration has spent much of the summer mounting a multimillion-dollar campaign to raise awareness about the law, yet according to Gallup numbers, these efforts have been largely in vain.

Since late June, overall approval for Obamacare has fallen by three points. Less than a quarter believe it will make their family’s healthcare situation better, and nearly four out of 10 feel that it will make it worse.

Only 15 percent of respondents claim to be “very” familiar with the law, and another 35 percent feel they are “somewhat” informed.  But these are also the people who express the lowest levels of approval for what they have learned.

Among those who say they are very or somewhat familiar with Obamacare, 55 percent disapprove; among those who don’t know much about the law, only 39 percent disapprove.

To this point, the president has enjoyed wide approval among Americans between the ages of 18 and 34.  Obamacare threatens that romance.

Today, young Americans are the least familiar with and the most approving of Obamacare. And the law’s success depends largely on their cooperation and support.

The entire basis of the ACA is that it will maximize the enrollment of young, healthy lives to offset the costs of covering those who are dying (literally, figuratively) for care.  But it’s hard to convince young and healthy people to pay for something they don’t feel they need.  Doing so would seem to require a high-level agreement with the cause.

Gallup warns that the lack of understanding about the law among younger Americans may translate into poor compliance. Young people just won’t sign up for coverage when that provision takes effect.

Yet if findings from its most recent polls bear out, learning more about Obamacare won’t be the fix that the administration has hoped for.

Obamacare will grow or fail upon its perceived legitimacy in the minds of America’s young.