Just The Facts On Obamacare

Peggy Noonan still calls it a catastrophe.  Republicans still plan on running against it.  But for all intents and purposes, as Steve Benen points out, the facts say the debate is largely over.

Consider a brief tale of the tape:

* ACA enrollment through exchanges reached 7.1 million, ahead of early estimates.

* If we include Medicaid, coverage has been extended to well over 10 million Americans.

* The ACA is quickly reducing the uninsured rate.

* According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the ACA is cheaper than expected and its risk-adjustment provisions are on track to turn a profit for taxpayers.

* Thanks in part to the ACA, health care spending has slowed dramatically and health care inflation is at its lowest point in 50 years.

* According to the Department of Commerce, the ACA is also having a positive effect on personal incomes.

Lazy partisans and ideologues can ignore all of this and cling desperately to the notion that the law is not only failing, but is also “a catastrophe like no other,” but they really shouldn’t bother. The evidence to the contrary is simply too overwhelming.

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.