For the nth time, the Trump administration lost again to his predecessor in his attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The battle was no longer in Congress but at the HealthCare.gov website where over 8.8 million Americans signed up for ACA health plans for 2018.
The high turnout was unexpected, almost matching the 2017 level even if the enrollment period was reduced by 50 percent. In addition, there were also other moves by the Trump administration to undermine the insurance marketplaces of Obamacare.
All-time high for new sign-ups
A report on Thursday said that the number of new consumers who signed up in one week reached an all-time record high of 1 million in the final days before the December 15 federal deadline. The total
…show more content…
Only 39 states
The 8.8 million numbers exclude the people who signed up in states that have their own insurance marketplaces under the law or in the other states in the federal exchange where the enrollment seasons were extended until late December. These are the areas that were affected by the hurricanes and other major fall storms.
But every year, there are some people who sign up for health coverage or are automatically renewed, but they do not have coverage because they do not pay the monthly premiums.
The numbers of people who signed up is an indicator that Americans demand and back quality, affordable health insurance and consumer protections that Obamacare offers, Robert Restuccia, the executive director of Community Catalyst, a large grassroots healthcare advocacy group, said.
Rep. Frank Pallione Jr., a Democratic congressman representing New Jersey and a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the high numbers is a remarkable result given the Trump administration’s efforts to sabotage enrollment by cutting outreach, creating chaos and confusion, slashing the subsidies for low-income families, and shortening the enrollment period.
Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said the 8.8 million signup is a healthy number. She said that the high demand shows that people shopping on the exchange – mostly subsidized buyers – were not deterred by the shorter window and political uncertainty of
This article by Christopher Weaver in the Wall Street Journal brings up some key points about the number of enrollees in Obamacare as the enrollment deadline closed on Monday. Along the way, the website has had its downfalls with the Congress shut down and technical issues. This may have hindered the number of people who potentially would have signed up but got frustrated during the process. It has been estimated that 7.1 million people have enrolled in the market place. The impact of this number on the health law is yet to be determined. It also is unseen how this will impact premiums in the long-run, as well as if these insurance companies can maintain the plans offered on the exchange (Weaver, 2014). Furthermore, the effect of many of the provisions and mandates are yet to be seen; it will be an interesting next few years to see how it pans out.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, and many other congressional leaders understand fully the cost of throwing those newly insured under the bus, it is not a popular position to fall under. In order to have a bit of approval from the majority of people, President Trump has emphasized that he would keep two popular features of Obamacare, and that is allowing children to stay under their parent’s insurance up to age 26, and to offer insurance to those with pre-existing conditions without higher premiums. The GOP only want the “good” without maintaining what keeps programs like Medicaid to run, and that is the growth of the government to provide the finances.
The Obama Administration as well as the media began to challenge these attacks, often when presented the facts lawmakers would retreat from the attack, however once in the political lexicon, the attack no matter how erroneous or false would continue to be repeated. This allowed Republicans to win a narrow victory in 2016 bringing Donald Trump to the Presidency. Trump a political outsider campaigned on many controversial items, from border control, to health care and all the while insisting that he could do the same thing with less complications. After winning the election Trump began pushing his agenda by offering a 33-page bill known American Health care Act was designed to repeal and replace the Patients Protection and Affordable Care Act.
It has been one year since the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Despite countless Republican attempts to repeal all or part of the new law, it is still with us and shows no sure signs of disintegration. The rollout of the government’s health care exchanges experienced significant growing pains right from the beginning. Time has fixed many of these technical glitches, but has done little to quell the debate over the affordability and viability of the law.
Across the country, Obamacare is failing the American people with high costs, few options, and broken promises of lowering healthcare costs. Under Obamacare, premiums have risen by over 40% on average, and over 100 percent in some places making unaffordable health care services. In 2017, five states have only one insurer on the Obamacare marketplace and nearly a third of all counties have only one insurer. According to the McKinsey Center, the number of eligible Americans with only one insurer to choose from increased from 2 percent in 2016 to 18 percent in 2017. Compared to 2016, in 2017 enrollment fell by 500,000 people and enrollment is millions of people below what was initially estimated.
Donald Trump made repealing and replacing Obamacare, a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act, a cornerstone of his presidential campaign. Yet, unlike some of his GOP rivals, the candidate pledged to preserve Medicaid and Medicare. So far, President Trump has stumbled on both promises. His first attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare failed in March because it didn 't appeal to both hardline conservatives and moderate Republicans. Now, Trump is pushing Congress to come to an agreement on a plan that could do just that.
Many of the 6.4 million Americans who receive subsidies through the federal marketplace are in
Based on the primary goal of Obamacare, more people will be insured under it. Five years after Obamacare was signed into law, the estimated number of insured individuals under the coverage and protections provided by the Affordable Care Act is more than 30 million (Blumenthal, Abrams, and Nuzum). The MSNBC also indicates that “millions of families have eagerly signed up for benefits through the ACA” (Benen). Meanwhile, the Washington Post releases that number of citizens without health coverage fell from 13.3 percent to 10.4 in 2014 (Bernstein). “That’s the largest single-year drop on record based on data going back to 1987”, according to the Washington Post (Bernstein). In the other words, The ACA has met its enrollment goals.
One of the main reasons why Obamacare is not working is because, insurance companies are pulling out of the Obamacare marketplace or going out of business, this is due to the government not reimbursing the companies as they promised. The article, “Beneficiaries Reflect Health Law Strengths and Faults” published on October 20, 2016 argues that the “Obama Administration, thwarted by Republican opponents in Congress, has paid out
The Obama Presidency is known for many things: two wars, economy crashes, government shutdowns and, yes, the infamous Obamacare. Throughout the last six years, President Obama’s agenda was set towards passing a major healthcare reform bill: The Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA), more commonly known as Obamacare. Passed on March 23, 2010 under considerable opposition, ACA is widely considered to be the landmark achievement of Obama’s presidency, and his hopeful legacy for historians long afterward. The law has since survived multiple challenges regarding its legality, but its impact on the intended (original) goal of reducing medical costs is still unclear. Affordable healthcare for all
In order for the central idea behind “Obamacare” to work as attended, people who were previously uninsured would now have write a check for a new expense: their monthly insurance premiums. According to CNNMoney this is not the case as, “around one in five” people who signed up for their new coverage plans had not paid by the January 31st deadline (even though the deadline was
There are many reasons why some people have remained uninsured. One of those reasons is not understanding that failure to have health coverage will mean paying a penalty when
Someone without health coverage are less likely to receive preventative care and therefore more likely to become ill which increases medical costs, [1].
After one of the most grueling presidential races in American history, the populous candidate Donald Trump has been elected by the American people as our next president. While campaigning, one of the first things that Trump vowed to accomplish in office was to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (donaldjtrump.com). Trump should have no trouble doing this with the support of both the Republican senate and the Republican House. The consequences of what exactly will be done is a constantly argued topic and the phrase “repeal and replace Obamacare” has become a sort of buzzword in the media.
As the open enrollment period for health insurance under the Obamacare marketplace kicks off, many people remain unsure about the future of the Affordable Care Act and whether or not the law is still in effect. In fact, many Americans believe the law was repealed by the Trump administration and have no intention of pursuing healthcare on the open marketplace. According to CNBC.com, almost one in four Americans believe Donald Trump repealed or partially repealed the law. Some Americans believe Trump eliminated Obamacare and replaced it with a new law.