As Paul Krugman does from time to time, he once again points out that the Affordable Care Act is working at least as well as hoped for, giving a helpful link to the latest Commonwealth Fund report that proves it. He also points out, as he does at the same time to times, that Republican politicians and they're allied scribblers and gibberers willfully refuse to embrace this reality and continue to predict the policy's imminent collapse, or even to claim that it is already happening.
Well he's right, but how can they get away with this? Part of the reason is that most people have been pretty much unaffected by it -- they still have the same employment based insurance or Medicare that they always did, so it doesn't really have anything to do with them directly, but if their congresscritter or favorite yacker is claiming it's a disaster for other people they aren't staring directly at the counterevidence. In fact, since premiums continue to go up, albeit more slowly than before, they can be persuaded to blame Obamacare for a situation that it has actually helped to ameliorate.
It is also true that people with relatively high incomes, who don't quality for big subsidies and chose not to buy insurance before, don't get the greatest deal. They might resent the mandate. There aren't many such people, and what is demanded of them is that they be socially responsible, but lots of people don't want to be. And yes, people who have benefited still have substantial out of pocket costs and their insurance will only turn out to be a good deal for them if they have major medical expenses. But that's true of the homeowners and car insurance too -- that's what insurance is for.
Still, the biggest problem is the corporate media, who won't sort out the truth for people -- not necessarily because of their philosophy of not refereeing fact and falsehood, but because they don't actually understand health care policy -- and the chickenshit Democrats who should have mounted a full-throated defense of the ACA from the beginning, and instead hid under their desks, where most of the remain.
Better Democrats, please.
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3 comments:
This article (the first screen is an enrollement thingie) one has to click thru
http://obamacarefacts.com/sign-ups/obamacare-enrollment-numbers/
states that around 8 million US residents signed up "to ACA" in 2014
and 12 million in 2015
(there are various categories etc. which I don't quite understand.)
These numbers are so small one can really question the impact. Are these numbers set to increase, why, how?
Does the ACA have more general / other / wider effects?
You know, in France (F is the US' no. 1. atlantacist ally, and the media spew lies) everyone says Obama gave Universal health
care to Americans!
Ana
It's a substantial proportion of people who were previously uninsured, and doesn't count the Medicaid expansion which has benefited about as many people in states that accepted it. The numbers will hopefully increase, in part because the penalty for not enrolling will steadily increase and in part because people will realize there aren't any death panels. It would be closer to universal coverage if all states had accepted the Medicaid expansion.
The ACA does have many other effects, it make various other policy changes, including changes in Medicare payment policy.
ok thx for the response, i get it (in part)
Ana
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