Obamacare lives
Americans are buying insurance on the ACA exchanges at record rates.
It’s shocking, absolutely shocking, that Americans prefer the peace of mind that comes with having health care coverage for themselves and their families. It’s shocking, maybe even unpatriotic, that they don’t believe a president who brays that Obamacare is “dead” and that he and his pals in Congress will — one day, some day — provide them with something so much better.
Shocking it may be, but the fact is, they’re not listening. Instead, they’re buying insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchanges at record rates, despite the Trump administration’s efforts to undercut enrollment figures by halting TV and radio advertising, cutting funds for “navigators” and spreading horror stories about skyrocketing premiums and inadequate coverage. Ignoring these termitic efforts, more than 600,000 people selected plans in the first 12 days of open enrollment, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Total daily sign-ups were up 79 percent compared to the equivalent period last year.
They weren’t listening in Maine, for sure. Voters last week approved expanding Medicaid by a vote of 59 percent to 41 percent, making their state the first to do so through a ballot proposal. Repudiating Gov. Paul LePage, a quirky, mean-spirited Republican who has vetoed Medicaid expansion bills five times, voters said they preferred living in a state where 80,000 lowincome residents will now have access to health care.
In Virginia, voters weren’t deciding on health care directly last week, but they told exit pollsters that it was their No. 1 priority, by far. With Virginia’s Legislature possibly falling to Democrats, pending the results of recounts, Medicaid expansion is a possibility. Expansion also may be on the ballot in Idaho and Utah next year.
For nearly a decade, House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Ted Cruz — the list could go on — have played the American people for fools. Promising with the metronomic regularity of a well-maintained cuckoo clock to “repeal and replace,” they came up with nothing — actually, worse than nothing — when they finally got their chance to vanquish the hated Obamacare and craft something better for the American people.
The only way for them to save face now is to endorse the halting bipartisan effort in the U.S. Senate to shore up the Affordable Care Act, thereby providing a measure of certainty to the health-insurance marketplace and to Americans who need coverage. If lawmakers are not interested in that effort, last week’s election results would suggest that they might be “repealed and replaced” themselves, whenever voters have an opportunity.