SIX YEARS AFTER THE PASSING OF OBAMACARE…SO HOW”S IT LOOKING?

…Obama signing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)

 

The Republicans hate it, but can’t seem to come up with something better.

 

Ok, it’s been 2,200 days since the Affordable Care Act became a law, and after all the noise, the GOP still hasn’t offered a replacement for Obamacare.  Remember when they all used to say, “Repeal & Replace” the health care law?”  Today, they only say, “We plan to repeal every word”.  The Republicans also continue to call it a failed program, and they have predicted nothing but catastrophic results from the program, so let’s take a look at how it’s done so far.

 

Comments from the Republicans today really takes us back to when Ronald Reagan said about the passing of Medicare, “Medicare will eventually lead to a future where you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”

 

Well, I’m entering what would be called my “sunset years” and we’re all still free and I’m very glad I have Medicare.

 

Here’s where we are today with Obamacare:

 

·       Twenty million people have gained health insurance from the Affordable Care Act.  This number would be even higher except for the 19 very Red state governors that have rejected the law’s Medicaid expansion.

 

·       The percentage of all Americans without insurance has since declined from 17.1% to 11.9% in the past two years. 

 

·       The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, as reported in Forbes, has found that the states “that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act saw more job growth, lower health inflation and have spent less on social and health services once more residents had medical coverage.”

 

·       Initiatives in the ACA are designed to encourage hospitals to reduce errors and are credited with helping to save 87,000 lives (and nearly $20 billion).

 

·       Insurance premium increases on the Obamacare exchanges last year averaged less than 4% before tax credits. And the law hasn’t just preserved the decline in health-care spending growth, it has actually accelerated it.

 

However, the law isn’t a total success. Fewer people than projected have signed up on the exchanges, though that has led to the law being cheaper than expected. Unfortunately, ½ of the health care Co-Ops set up under the law have failed. But overall, the law looks to be a clear victory.

 

As a result, Republicans have quietly dialed down the anti-Obamacare rhetoric. Two of the three remaining Republican candidates today embrace key parts of the ACA, and few GOP Senate candidates in close races are trying to oppose the law.  It doesn’t help that some conservatives, including conservative Supreme Court Justices still need to learn more about the basics of the law.

 

The reality is that Obamacare is not the “train-wreck” that the GOP predicted, just as Medicare did not keep America from staying as the “land of the free”.

 

But here we are, 6 years after Obamacare became the “law of the land”, and there have been zero proposed replacements and zero Republican votes cast for any replacement program.

 

As one recent article stated: “Since Obamacare became a law, Taylor Swift became a pop artist, the House and the Senate have changed hands in separate elections, Obama won reelection and millions of women have reaped the benefits of free birth control.”

 

In December, the House Speaker, Paul Ryan (R-WI), promised to introduce an alternative program to Obamacare this year.  Since then, he has been backing off from that idea.  Ryan’s office has tried to spin it as he was just staying out of the process of assembling an alternative.  But he’s dodging the reality that choosing a specific GOP health care alternative would require Speaker Ryan to rally his party’s support around it.

 

Ryan has stated that, “Ideas, passionately promoted and put to the test—that’s what politics can be,” he said. “That’s what our country can be.”  He then praised Jack Kemp’s past push for tax cuts as he said, “All it took was someone willing to put policy on paper and promote it passionately. This is the basic concept behind the policy agenda that House Republicans are building right now.”

 

But honestly, those are all nice words, but don’t expect anything on health care to be forthcoming from the GOP as an alternative to Obamacare.

 

The Republicans are putting all their eggs into the 2016 presidential election as their way to get rid of and repeal Obamacare.  But that means that they will need to win the White House and keep either the Senate or the House, or both.  As of today, I wouldn’t put any of my savings account on that horse.

 

And if Donald Trump becomes the GOP nominee, Obamacare will continue to be around for a very long time.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016