Despite boon to the uninsured, Obamacare still decried

Americans are more likely to say Obamacare is hurting them than helping them, even as the law appears to have cut the uninsured rate by nearly 4 percentage points, according to Gallup data released Wednesday.

A greater share of people say they are feeling the impact of the law — for better or worse — now that it has taken effect, even though just over half of Americans still say they have seen no difference in their lives. Those who say the law harmed them has risen since the start of the year, from 19 percent to 27 percent, while people who say the law helped them increased from 10 percent to 16 percent.

Overall, 53 percent of Americans disapprove of the health care law, while 41 percent approve, underscoring the law’s continued unpopularity in an election year.

“Even though the health care law appears to have lowered the U.S. uninsured rate, Americans’ views toward the law overall and its effect on the U.S. health care situation in the long run continue to be more negative than positive,” Gallup said.

The polling company said the uninsured rate has dropped by 3.7 percentage points since the fourth quarter of last year, from an average of 17.1 percent to 13.4 percent. That decrease coincided with the enactment of Obamacare’s “individual mandate,” which required most Americans to hold health insurance as of Jan. 1 of this year.

Since then, that rate has held steady. Analysts said that’s because Obamacare’s state-based health exchanges were not accepting new enrollees after April, and will open for the second year’s enrollment on Nov. 15.

The administration unveiled a new version of HealthCare.gov, the federal website that serves 36 states, to a set of reporters Wednesday. The latest edition is optimized for mobile devices and cuts down on the number of screens that users must visit, among other improvements, The Associated Press reported.

But Obamacare’s second enrollment period poses new challenges. Those who didn’t sign up during the first round may be harder to reach or resist getting coverage, and the sign-up period will be two months shorter than last year’s.

Still, the penalty for lacking insurance will increase in 2015, which may drive some to sign up.

Some critics doubt many Americans will actually have to pay the first-year penalty during the 2014 tax filing season. They point to numerous exemptions to the individual mandate beyond statutory exemptions for — among others — prisoners, members of health care-sharing ministries or people who cannot afford coverage because the cheapest exchange plan is more than 8 percent of their household income.

The Obama administration unveiled 14 hardship exemptions that cover people who, for instance, experienced domestic violence or could not get Medicaid coverage because they live in a state that chose not to expand the government program under Obamacare.

One exemption is people who demonstrate “another hardship in obtaining health insurance,” an open-ended item that raised eyebrows among critics.

TurboTax, an online tax-prep company, launched a Web tool Wednesday that lets customers answer a few questions about themselves to see if they qualify for an exemption from the mandate.

For its part, the administration has said it is trying to be flexible in rolling out its signature overhaul. They also say the reforms are working, noting 7.3 million people had retained coverage from the new health exchanges as of mid-August.

Gallup said the 13.4-percent uninsured mark is the lowest it has measured since starting tracking the topic in 2008. The previous low was 14.4 percent in 2008’s third quarter.