40% of Americans Spending More on Health Care This Year

NEW YORK, Sept. 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Two in five Americans (40%) are spending more on health care now than they were one year ago, according to a new Bankrate.com (NYSE: RATE) report. Only eight percent are spending less.

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Twenty-eight percent of Americans are feeling more negative about the Affordable Care Act now than they were 12 months ago, twice as many as the 14% who are feeling more positive. One in four say it is more difficult to handle medical expenses now than it was a year ago (more than three times as many as those who say it is easier).

Americans' biggest question about the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is how it will affect their current health coverage. Twenty-eight percent say this is what they would most like to know about the new law, followed closely by the 24% who want to know how it will affect their household budgets. Twenty percent are most curious about whether the Affordable Care Act is really going to happen, and 15% say their top question is simply what Obamacare is.

"We're just three weeks away from when the new health insurance exchanges will begin accepting applications, and we're still observing a disturbing lack of consumer education," said Bankrate.com insurance analyst Doug Whiteman. "If this doesn't change soon, millions of Americans could miss important deadlines or make uninformed decisions."

These findings comprise Bankrate.com's first Health Insurance Pulse, a monthly survey that tracks how Americans are feeling about health care and their personal finances. The survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International (PSRAI) and can be seen in its entirety here:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/insurance/health-insurance-charts-0913.aspx

PSRAI obtained telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,000 adults living in the continental United States. Interviews were conducted by landline (500) and cell phone (500, including 265 without a landline phone) in English by Princeton Data Source from August 15-18, 2013. Statistical results are weighted to correct known demographic discrepancies. The margin of sampling error for the complete set of weighted data is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

About Bankrate, Inc.

Bankrate is a leading publisher, aggregator, and distributor of personal finance content on the Internet. Bankrate provides consumers with proprietary, fully researched, comprehensive, independent and objective personal finance editorial content across multiple vertical categories including mortgages, deposits, insurance, credit cards, and other categories, such as retirement, automobile loans, and taxes. The Bankrate network includes Bankrate.com, our flagship website, and other owned and operated personal finance websites, including CreditCards.com, Interest.com, Bankaholic.com, Mortgage-calc.com, CreditCardGuide.com, Nationwide Card Services, InsuranceQuotes.com, CarInsuranceQuotes.com, InsureMe, Bankrate.com.cn, CreditCards.ca, NetQuote.com, and CD.com. Bankrate aggregates rate information from over 4,800 institutions on more than 300 financial products. With coverage of nearly 600 local markets in all 50 U.S. states, Bankrate generates over 172,000 distinct rate tables capturing on average over three million pieces of information daily. Bankrate develops and provides web services to over 80 co-branded websites with online partners, including some of the most trusted and frequently visited personal finance sites on the Internet such as Yahoo!, AOL, CNBC, and Bloomberg. In addition, Bankrate licenses editorial content to over 500 newspapers on a daily basis including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe.

For more information:

Caroline Farhat
Publicist
Bankrate, Inc.
caroline.farhat@bankrate.com
(917) 368-8638

SOURCE Bankrate, Inc.