New enrollment figures for both state and federal health insurance Marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) show that participation picked up steam after a slow start. Previous research suggests that the initial low levels of Marketplace enrollment were driven as much by gaps in awareness of the ACA's coverage provisions as by the widely publicized problems with the federal website. For example, only about one-third of adults had heard some or a lot about the Marketplaces on the eve of the Marketplace rollout. By December 2013, about one-fifth of uninsured adults had looked at that time and another third planned to look. Additional research finds that many uninsured are not looking for coverage in the Marketplaces because they are unaware that financial help is available there.

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