Surprisingly - even shockingly - ignorant.

Reuters:

Most uninsured adult Americans lack basic knowledge about President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law and haven't visited their online insurance marketplace because they think health insurance is unaffordable, according to a survey released on Thursday.

The survey from Enroll America, a non-profit healthcare enrollment coalition, found that 68 percent of uninsured adults had not yet logged onto their online exchanges.

A similar number, 69 percent of the uninsured, still lacked knowledge about tax subsidies and other financial help designed to make the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, affordable for many, the survey said.

"Large proportions of the uninsured are also still in the dark about deadlines and that brand new plans are available," Enroll America said in a report about the survey.

"A lack of facts about costs and coverage may be the greatest barriers to enrollment," it added.

The law is expected to reduce the number of uninsured in the United States by almost half, or about 25 million people, in the next 10 years.

As many as 7 million people are expected to buy insurance on the state exchanges and 8.7 million new beneficiaries are expected to enroll in Medicaid in 2014 alone.

The administration, however, appears to be far behind in meeting its enrollment goals.

Anne Filipic, the president of Enroll America, told reporters in a conference call about the survey that more than 2 million uninsured Americans have signed up for plans through state and federal exchanges so far.

The nationwide survey of 910 adults was conducted December 12-22 by PerryUndem Research/Communication and had a margin of error of 4.3 percentage points.

It found that eight in 10 uninsured adults were unaware of the need to sign up for insurance by March to avoid a fine, under the so-called individual mandate.

I suppose we shouldn't be shocked. Ten years after the government made a concerted effort to inform Americans how AIDS is spread, 30% still believed you could contract the disease from casual contact such as shaking hands.

It asppears that a lot of low information Americans are going to get a big, unwelcome surprise when they are told by the IRS that they're being fined for not having insurance.