Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a series of columns exploring the topic of the Affordable Care Act.
The Affordable Care Act was a controversial topic even before its passage in 2010, but this controversy has become even more focused as the website rollout was subpar and the president won Politifact’s “lie of the year” for his promise that Americans could keep their insurance plans.
But what does this controversy really mean? Is it a mere hiccup in the rollout of the new health care law, or definitive proof that Obamacare is a flawed law that will prove to be poor public policy?
While few could dispute the program’s rocky rollout, the GOP have been circulating the claim that more people have lost their health insurance than have gained insurance.
GOP lawmakers claim that 4.7 million people received cancellation notices in the mail, a number that originated in a report by the Associated Press. However, based on information contained in a report by the minority staff of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, this claim is patently false.
Half of the 4.7 million should be able to simply renew their coverage, approximately 1.4 million should be eligible for tax credits with which to find new insurance plans and of the remaining 950,000, fewer than 10,000 will not be eligible for an affordable plan — according to the report.
This means that less than 0.2 percent of the 4.7 million will actually be without insurance due to the ACA.
Considering this report comes from a democratic lawmaker, some critics will dismiss these numbers. But Forbes contributor Rick Ungar contends that the ACA has already helped 9.4 million Americans get insurance they wouldn’t have otherwise.
That’s a big number.
Approximately 2.1 million people have signed up for plans using the exchanges.
Not even the harshest critics of Obamacare seem to doubt this number, and while they insist it is not on track for the 7 million people enrolled by March needed for Obamacare to succeed, it is a solid start considering the website’s early difficulties.
According to the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, the 7 million mark isn’t really a necessary goal, but rather an estimate that comes from the Congressional Budget Office’s May 2013 projection of how many would sign up for insurance — and this estimate didn’t take into consideration two months of a nonfunctioning website.
Part of the Affordable Care Act was a Medicaid expansion, and Ungar reported that through the end of 2013, Medicaid enrollment was up by 4.3 million people who wouldn’t have qualified previously.
This number would be even larger, but 24 states refused to expand Medicaid.
Who are the remaining 3 million? People like you and I who are under the age of 26 who, thanks to the ACA, get to remain on their parent’s insurance plan.
Considering the poor job market for younger Americans, this provision is valuable, and the 3 million Americans who remain insured until 26 should not be discounted.
But the success of the ACA isn’t about the raw numbers, but rather the age and health ratios of new enrollees, which is the data insurance companies use to set premiums.
At the moment, only 24 percent of the new enrollees are young people. This is unlikely to pose much of a problem, according to Klein.
These numbers suggest these troubles were a hiccup.
We’ll see in time whether or not it results in positive public policy.
Andrew Deskins
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