To understand what’s happened with the A.C.A. so far, you
need to realize that as written (and interpreted by the Supreme Court), the
law’s functioning depends a lot on cooperation from state governments. And
where states have in fact cooperated, expanding Medicaid, operating their own
insurance exchanges, and promoting both enrollment and competition among
insurers, it has worked pretty darn well.
Compare, for example, the experience of Kentucky and its
neighbor Tennessee. In 2013, before full implementation of the A.C.A.,
Tennessee had slightly fewer uninsured, 13 percent versus 14 percent. But
by 2015Kentucky, which implemented the law in full, had cut its uninsured
rate to just 6 percent, while Tennessee was at 11.
Or consider the problem of counties with only one (or no)
insurer, meaning no competition. As one recent study points out, this is almost
entirely a
red-state problem. In states with G.O.P. governors, 21 percent of the
population lives in such counties; in Democratic-governor states, less than 2
percent.
So Obamacare is, though nobody will believe it, a
well-thought-out law that works where states want it to work. It could and
should be made
to work better, but Republicans show no interest in making that happen.
Instead, all their ideas involve sawing off one or more legs of that
three-legged stool.
I may not have said it for a day or two so, thank God I live in NY!
And thank goodness my children live in NY and Calif., and I live in Massachusetts. Mass., of course, has Mass. Health (Romneycare), upon which the ACA was developed -- a Heritage Foundation idea proposed by a Democratic president, so, therefore, the Rethuglicans were against it. If J.C. himself had proposed a universal health care plan, the Rethuglicans would have trashed it and Him!
ReplyDeleteWhat a pity the repeal and replace (or possibly just repeal and let people die) is going so badly. here's hoping the next Congress looks a whole lot bluer.
ReplyDelete