With all the hype and controversy over Obamacare, once in a while it’s nice to look at the facts. And here are recent numbers – on the percent of Americans who lack health insurance, a figure that has dropped significantly in recent months with the expansion of Medicaid and the opening of the health insurance…
The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid eligibility this year in those states which decided to follow its provisions. That means lots of people are now newly eligible for Medicaid. However, the number of people signing up for Medicaid in the states has been underwhelming. Which raises a question: how much can we expect enrollment numbers…
People have criticized The Affordable Care Act for amounting to a large transfer of wealth, from wealthy Americans to those not as well off. But the real transfer of wealth has been from United States to other developed nations, whose healthcare costs we have subsidized for many years by paying so generously for many of…
Politics in the US is discouragingly partisan. National politics has become increasingly partisan since at least the late ’60s, when the passage of civil rights legislation influenced many conservative southern Democrats to join the Republican Party. Even state politics has become more partisan, where even famously nice people in Wisconsin have found themselves battling their neighbors across…
The Affordable Care Act established several programs to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations. These ACOs are a relatively new way of organizing healthcare delivery, in which healthcare providers join together – perhaps across physician groups and hospitals – to care for a population of patients, and are then held accountable both for the…
A report on the Kaiser Family Foundation website shows how long it takes to get appointments with primary care doctors and subspecialists. The most dramatic finding comes out of Boston, where you can expect to wait more than two months to see a family physician. I expect the delay in seeing a family physician results…
Here is a nice picture, from a HuffPo article , showing how much money states are losing by not expanding Medicaid in accordance with the Affordable Care Act: Not a small change, by any measure. Shows how much it means to some folks to prove their anti-ACA bonafides. What is too often lost, in this…
Here is a picture from a recent Atlantic article, showing that, pre-Obamacare implementation, women have more difficulty paying for medical care: The ACA should fix improve this situation, meaning Obamacare should help women more than men. (Click here to view comments)
It is always important to remember that healthcare and health insurance are two very different things, and neither of them is a guarantee of good health. Therefore, when people talk about Obamacare providing people with medical care, we have to remember that it primarily provides people with health care insurance. And as I have written about previously, insurance coverage…
A recent Gallup poll shows that the percent of Americans without health insurance has dropped significantly in recent months. Here’s a picture of their findings: This drop has occurred largely in response to Obamacare – to the expansion of Medicaid in those states which went along with that provision of the law, and with the…