New enrollments plus exchanges surpass 10 million.

Obamacare Off to a Great Start

The latest data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show 2014 costs of Obamacare will be $5 billion less than predicted; and costs from 2015-2014 will be $100 billion less than predicted. Moreover, 12 million Americans will have health care coverage by the end of 2014 who did not have it at the start of the year. Those numbers carry just one conclusion: Obamacare is off and running to a great start.

The costs of health care in America historically have been the highest of all the countries in the world—approximately twice as high as in Europe. And our costs have added to the cost of living at the fastest pace. There is no evidence, however, that our health ever was any better, and some evidence that it has been worse. But there is a lot of new evidence that the Affordable Care Act is working, and it is bringing total costs down while expanding health care to millions of residents.

Obamacare surpassed its initial goal of 7 million enrollments in spite of delays due to software issues. Add to that number another 3 million new exchange enrollees under Medicaid, and more than 10 million Americans now have health insurance—without lifetime caps, without being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and with drug coverage while long term costs for everyone are coming down even faster than anyone predicted. All those facts are supported by the CBO's analyses of the incoming data. Moreover, virtually every negative ad on television and elsewhere about Obamacare are being refuted by the same data.

An example of how dishonest the campaign against Obamacare has been, consider these facts: Opponents in Congress have devoted much time to killing the legislation. 50 times they have tried, and 50 times they have failed. In television ads opponents continue to assert that millions of Americans are losing their health care coverage due to Obamacare. In reality, many Americans have found that they could trade in their old policies for new policies with better coverage at lower costs. What rational person would call that exchange as “lost” coverage? Those TV ads have also falsely asserted that the new legislation took $716 billion from Medicare in order to pay for present coverage. That is an utterly false claim. In fact, projected future costs of Medicare have long been a concern to the viability of Medicare. Those future costs are now projected to be much lower as a direct result of Obamacare with cost savings of at least $716 billion. while the solvency of Medicare is projected to be extended by 12 more years, with more benefits, more doctor participation, and more drug coverage, not less.

Many state legislatures have rejected federal funds to expand their Medicaid exchange coverage to the poor. In so doing they have denied many millions of poor Americans coverage. Those states are Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. What do all of these states have in common? They all have republican legislatures and republican governors.