A growing number of uninsured people in the United States would rather pay a fine than buy health insurance under Obamacare, according to a new Gallup poll.
About 35 percent of survey respondents would like to defy the individual mandate, up 6 points since last November.
Broken down by political party, Republicans are more resistant to it, but the Democrats figure is higher than expected. According to the poll released Thursday, 44 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of Democrats said they were more likely to pay the fine.
The individual mandate first went into effect in January 2014. People who do not get covered will face a fine of at least $325 in 2015, The Hill reported. The penalty is more than double that of the previous year.
Within the next year, the penalties will increase again to $695 per adult or 2.5 percent of a family’s income, whichever is greater.
“So either the amount of the fine is still not high enough to compel the uninsured to get coverage — or the uninsured may be unaware of the stiffer penalty in 2015 for being uninsured,” Gallup managing editor Jeffrey Jones wrote.
Obamacare still seems to have been lost in translation to a significant portion of Americans.
About 30 percent of poll respondents said they did not know about individual mandate and the potential fine.
And among uninsured Americans, 46 percent said they are “not familiar at all” and 19 percent said they are “not too familiar” with the Healthcare.gov exchange to obtain health insurance. Just 8 said they were “very familiar” with it.
These responses are basically at the same levels as in 2013 and early 2014.
The second year of Obamacare sign-ups begins Saturday. The federal government has dramatically cut expectations for 2015 Obamacare enrollment, saying between 9 million and 9.9 million people will enroll in private health plans, compared to earlier predictions of 13 million. About 7.1 million people signed up for coverage last year.
