More Evidence Obamacare Is Working

by Stuart Shapiro

A new study from the nonpartisan Kaiser Foundation has a lot of bad news for those who want to repeal Obamacare:

The new Kaiser Family Foundation study looking at Obamacare’s likely impact on health insurance costs is getting a lot of attention, and rightly so. As Bloomberg News puts it, this is the “the broadest look yet at what consumers will pay for health insurance when the Affordable Care Act takes full effect next year,” and its top line finding is that insurance will be “affordable.” In other words, no “rate shock.”

Indeed, if you dig into the report, you’ll find more information that really bodes well for Obamacare’s implementation.

Specifically, the prices of the so-called “bronze” plans turn out to be very affordable, and even more so when you add in the law’s subsidies — which is very good news for those who worried people won’t sign on to the exchanges.

The clock is close to striking midnight on the repealers.  Soon, people will have health insurances, Obamacare will be a fact of life like Medicare, support for it will grow, and we can all (finally) move on.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.