Land of the free, home of the uninformed

The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, found that nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) didn’t know how the Supreme Court ruled on the Affordable Care Act last Thursday. Another 15 percent think the law was overturned.

That means that 45 percent of those surveyed didn’t know how the Supreme Court had ruled on the issue. The ignorance was bipartisan; Democrats and Republicans were evenly split on not knowing the correct outcome.

The ruling was a milestone for anyone associated with health care, including PR firms. The most potentially damaging challenge to the law—the bid to invalidate the individual mandate provision—fell short by one key vote, the surprising position of Chief Justice John Roberts.

With that challenge blunted, health-care communications plans were put into action nationwide. The high court’s decision was the biggest news in that field since the American Hospital Association acknowledged in 1969 that there was, indeed, a health care crisis.