Check out this horribly typical Politico
lede:
None of the components of President Obama's health care law that have taken effect appear to be affecting insurance coverage of adults over 26, according to a new poll Friday.
That would be because the primary provisions of the law that would extend insurance to the over-26 crowd hasn't taken effect yet. But on to the substance of this report, because there is some.
The percentage of adults with no health insurance is the highest on record, with 17.3 percent of adults being uninsured in the third quarter of 2011, statistically tying the high set in the second quarter, Gallup found. Three years ago, in the third quarter of 2008, only 14.4 percent of adults lacked health insurance.
Gallup cautions, however, that the record high coincides with a methodological change that samples cell-phone only respondents, which tend to be younger and thus more likely to be uninsured. Thus, some of the increase in the figure could be linked to this change. [...]
[W]hile adults from 18-25 have seen an increase in coverage, older adults have not. In fact, 19.9 percent of 26-64 year olds are uninsured, up from 18.1 percent in mid-2010.
This isn't a failure of the Affordable Care Act. If it's an Obama administration failure at all, it's in the fact that unemployment remains above nine percent, and the administration went down an austerity route instead of maintaining a full-time focus on jobs and the economy. The component of the ACA that would increase the number of insured is the small business tax credit, but with small business not hiring and in fact reducing their labor force, the success of that provision has been limited. But there is evidence that small businesses have increased the number of remaining employees covered by insurance.
The other provision now in effect, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, has been underperforming, with just 34,000 enrollees. That's a disappointment that the administration has been attempting to turn around with great publicity and a relaxation of some of the rules to make it more affordable and easier to access. But the failure of this program to thrive isn't significant enough to blame for the increase in uninsured Gallup reports.