Affordable Care ActOnline Conversation Analysis

Affordable Care Act Overall Conversation5%

10%

8%

78%

ACA Channel Breakdown

Blogs Forums News Twitter

• Over the past year there have been 8.5 million mentions discussing the Affordable Care Act

• More than half of conversation is negative, reflecting the conservative opposition and negative public perception of the Affordable Care Act

• Conversation that includes a mention of “Obamacare” is almost twice as negative as conversation that does not

• Conversation volume centers around congressional activity surrounding the implementation of ACA and online campaigns to oppose the progress

• The largest spike can be attributed to the presidential debate which discussed the future of healthcare policy and the Affordable Care Act

• Over three fourths of conversation originates from twitter• Remaining conversation is split across forums and news with limited

input from blogs

Past Year

Past 3 Months

54.5%

49.4%

29.6%

28.8%

15.8%

21.8%

Overall Conversation

negative neutral positive

Mentions Obamacare

Does not Mention

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

15.7%

16.5%

23.3%

51.8%

61.0%

31.8%

With and Without Obamacare

Positive Neutral Negative

N= 385Source: Sysomos; September 19,2012 – September 19, 2013

0

50000

100000

150000

200000

250000

300000

350000

ACA Conversation Past Year

10/3/12:Presidential debate discusses health care policy

11/6/12:Presidential election

5/6/13:Increased GOP attacks - Florida repeals Medicaid expansion - Cantor tries repealing ACA

07/03/13:Employee Mandate delayed

08/02/13:“Congress exempts themselves from ACA

09/25/13:Ted Cruz filibusters to defund the ACA

Analyzing language surrounding top health legislation termsAffordable Care Act vs. Obamacare

#repealobamacare

#hr

#health

#uniteblue

#hcr

#p2

#healthcare

#tcot

#obamacare

#aca

-10% 0% 10% 20% 30%

Top ACA Hashtags

% of Conversation Occurring In

#pjnet

#gop

#tlot

#irs

#dontfundit

#defundobamacare

#teaparty

#p2

#tcot

#obamacare

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Obamacare Top Hash-tags

% of Conversation Occurring In

• Top hashtag for both terms corresponds to healthcare act terminology

• Obamacare is the second highest hashtag in ACA conversation, while no ACA related terms appear in Obamacare top hashtags

• Obamacare conversation has a higher percentage of hashtag use• Reflecting the high percentage of re-tweeted content composing

Obamacare conversation

• While Affordable Care Act hashtags are a mix of political and health terms, Obamacare hashtags are almost entirely political

• Conservative party terms and slogans characterize political hashtags

• Both healthcare act terms have health occurring the most frequently in conversation

• The second most common Affordable Care Act keyword refers to a specific piece of the legislation, “insurance” while the same occurs substantially less in Obamacare conversation

• Occurrence of political terms illustrates overall focus of each term’s conversation

• “Law” occurs in 28% of ACA conversation while the same word only occurs in 22% of Obamacare

• “Government” a term unrelated with legislation, occurs with higher frequency amongst Obamacare conversations as compared to ACA

affordable

act

years

year

law

insurance

government

time

people

health

-20% 0% 20% 40% 60%

Obamacare Top Keywords

years

federal

obamacare

government

law

year

time

people

insurance

health

0% 20% 40% 60%

ACA Top Keywords

Source: Sysomos; September 19,2012 – September 19, 2013

Congressional Exemption

Employee Coverage

Family Planning

Pre Existing Conditions

Federal Mandate

Health Care Exchange

Medicaid Expansion

ACA in General

-10% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

ACA Focus in Conversations not Mentioning “Obamacare”

Negative Neutral Positive

Device Tax

Family Planning

Congressional Exemption

Health Care Exchange

Pre Existing Conditions

ACA in General

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

ACA Focus in Conversations Mentioning “Obamacare”

Negative Neutral Positive

Percent of Conversation

What part of the Affordable Care Act do we care about?

• More than half of Obamacare conversation discusses the Affordable Care Act in broad context

• The requirement for all citizens to purchase health insurance is the most highly discussed section of the ACA in Obamacare discussions

• Almost three fourths of conversation discussing the federal health mandate

• Conversation surrounding pre existing conditions, coverage of employees and health care exchanges drive similar volumes of conversation

• Slightly less than a third of Affordable Care Act discussions focus on the ACA in broad context

• The expansion of Medicaid is the most highly discussed section of the ACA in Affordable Care Act discussion

• The highest discussed individual section of the ACA in Affordable Care Act conversation also has the highest percentage of negative conversation, with sentiment split almost evenly between negative and neutral/positive conversation

• Pre existing conditions drive the highest percentage of positive conversation

N= 301 N= 85

Source: Sysomos; September 19,2012 – September 19, 2013