Survey: Parts of healthcare reform popular

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MENLO PARK, Calif., March 21 (UPI) -- Two-thirds of the uninsured and a majority of U.S. adults don't know enough about the Affordable Care Act to estimate how it may affect them, a survey says.

However, the tracking survey of the Kaiser Family Foundation found many major provisions of the legislation are very popular; 96 percent of Democrats favored the tax credits to small businesses to buy health insurance, but so did 87 percent of Independents as did 83 percent of Republicans.

There were similar percentages favoring closing the Medicare "doughnut hole;" creating health insurance exchanges and extension of dependent coverage -- children remained covered under a parent's health insurance until age 26.

Eighty-eight percent of Democrats favored Medicaid expansion for the working poor, as did 70 percent of Independents and 42 of Republicans, while 55 percent of Democrats, 39 percent of Independents and 21 percent favored the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

Twenty-nine percent said the Affordable Care Act would make them worse off, 21 percent said it would make them better off, and 4-in-10 said they didn't think it would make any difference to them.

However, the country remains roughly evenly divided on the healthcare reform legislation with 40 percent holding an unfavorable view of the law and 37 percent holding a favorable view.

The survey of about 1,000 U.S. adults was conducted March 5-10 and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.