Is Obamacare hurting Americans’ retirement plans?

Over the past couple of years, we have reported on numerous studies, articles and reports that have highlighted how President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise colloquially known as Obamacare, will lead to higher medical costs and premiums. A survey now finds that Obamacare will likely hurt Americans’ retirement plans.

A new survey released by Money-Rates.com on Tuesday discovered that a growing number of American workers think Obamacare will lead to higher healthcare costs and thus prompt them to delay their retirement.

The study interviewed 2,000 respondents and exactly one-third of them said their retirement will be delayed, while 17 percent think the healthcare reform initiative will allow them to retire earlier than expected. The remainder of the interviewees will think the ACA will have no impact on their retirement.

Of the individuals that said the new federal healthcare law will impact their retirement think the delay would be significant: 39 percent said the delay would be five years or more and 30 percent said their retirement would be paused by between three and five years.

In addition, 71 percent of those who say Obamacare will help them retire earlier say it would move up their retirement date by three years or less and eight percent think it would be five years or more.

“With the program still in its early stages, the actual impact of Obamacare — also known as the Affordable Care Act — remains to be seen. What can be said at this point is that the debate over the program has created a certain amount of fear, and this survey measures the degree of that fear,” wrote Richard Barrington, senior financial analyst for MoneyRates.com, in a statement.

‘Not Worth It’

A different study, meanwhile, found that a majority of Americans don’t think Obamacare has been worth it. The new report by Bankrate.com highlighted that seven in 10 Americans say the ACA hasn’t been worth it, while nearly half (43 percent) say Obamacare has had a mostly negative impact on the United States. An additional 21 percent say it hasn’t had an impact at all.