So what happened about all those dire forecasts of disaster as a result of Obamacare?

The official name for Barack Obama’s reform of the American healthcare system is the Affordable Care Act but it has been dubbed – usually by his opponents – as Obamacare. At first, media reports on the implementation of the legislation concentrated – at least outside the US – on the initial IT problems and on continued legal challenges, but quietly the Act has been transforming health care for the better for millions and millions of Americans – as is clear from this quote:

“There was no rate shock: average premiums in 2014 were about 16 percent lower than projected. There is no death spiral: On average, premiums for 2015 are between 2 and 4 percent higher than in 2014, which is a much slower rate of increase than the historical norm. The number of Americans without health insurance has fallen by around 15 million, and would have fallen substantially more if so many Republican-controlled states weren’t blocking the expansion of Medicaid. And the overall cost of the program is coming in well below expectations.”

This is an extract from a column in the “New York Times” by Paul Krugman. So will the Republican doom-mongers recant? Will pigs fly?


 




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