Survey: Healthy young adults interested in 'Obamacare'

NEW YORK, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- Two-of-five visitors to the health insurance marketplace website potentially eligible for coverage were young adults ages 19 to 34, a U.S. survey indicates.

A Commonwealth Fund survey, conducted Dec. 11-29, found 24 percent of U.S. adults who are potentially eligible for health insurance coverage had visited one of the new insurance marketplaces by the end of December to find a health plan.

The survey was comprised of U.S. adults without insurance; those who purchased coverage on their own in the individual market, and those who said they purchased a plan through the marketplace.

From Oct. 1 to Dec. 29, 77 percent of marketplace visitors said they were in excellent, very good or good health.

Almost 60 percent of people potentially eligible for healthcare coverage who either had not yet gone to the marketplace or had visited the marketplace by December but not yet applied for or enrolled in health insurance said they are likely to try to enroll in a plan or to find out if they are eligible for financial help by March 31.

The health insurance coverage open enrollment period for 2014 ends March 31.

"Adults who are potentially eligible to buy health insurance through the marketplaces are demonstrating their determination to gain health insurance this year," Sara Collins, lead survey researcher and The Commonwealth Fund's vice president for healthcare coverage and access, said in a statement.

Among those who had individual coverage, a fifth said they had received a cancellation letter from an insurance carrier in 2013. Sixty percent of all adults with individual coverage said insurance carriers had offered them the option of renewing plans through 2014; of those, 82 percent planned to keep current plans, the survey said.

Of the 3,805 interviews completed by Social Science Research Solutions, 2,592 were completed by respondents ages 19 to 64. A total of 622 of these respondents reported they were uninsured or had purchased health insurance through the individual market or through the new marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act.

This sample of 622 adults potentially eligible for coverage under the ACA took the Commonwealth Fund's Affordable Care Act Tracking Survey. The survey has an overall margin of error of 4.56 percentage points.