The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, has been a hot button issue in
American politics.
It has been debated, protested, screamed about and has already made one
trip to the Supreme Court.
It has been over a year since open enrollment, so it might be a good
time to ask, is Obamacare working?
There are many ways to look at the success or failure of a healthcare system, but lets
just
look at the big picture.
One clear sign of success many people point to is the decreasing
number of uninsured Americans.
Polls from Gallup, the CDC and the New England Journal of
Medicine all show that the number of uninsured is going down.
One poll from the Health Return
Monitoring Survey saw the number of uninsured drop 30% between 2013 and 2014.
Another major aspect of the Affordable Care Act is to be, well, affordable.
And there is
evidence that costs are down, partially due to an increase in competition between health
insurers.
There are more people insured now than ever before and as a result there are more
health insurance providers popping up to compete for those customers.
This has been directly
connected to lower premiums across the country.
Many studies have found that premium rates
are either increasing at a slower rate than normal or in some cases, actually decreasing
Health care spending has also gone down.
But Obamacare isn’t really responsible for this.
Healthcare spending has been trending downwards all around the world and in the US the
recession is seen as the main reason for this.
Experts believe that Obamacare will actually
make health care spending increase in the future.
The more people that have health insurance
will mean more money spent on health care.
One big factor in judging how a health care system is working is the health of the nation.
Whether or not Obamacare is helping Americans be healthier, we don’t know yet.
Obamacare
hasn’t been around long enough to answer that question.
And of course Obamacare has had negative effects on some.
People making middle-class
wages have reported hardships in paying their medical insurance premiums because they
don’t qualify for any government subsidies to help relieve the financial pressure.
There are also
states that haven’t implemented Medicaid expansion policies which have created gaps,
where
some Americans don’t qualify for one helpful program because they make too much money and
another helpful program because they make too little.
Obviously this does not cover all aspects of Obamacare.
But the facts are still there the three
main issues: there are more people insured, health care costs have not skyrocketed and
the
health insurance industry is growing.
Want to avoid going to the doctor's office more than you should?
Check out this video over at
DNews about why hand sanitizer is more harmful than you might think!