On the eve of the six year anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act the Associated Press is touting the laws success in lowering the rate of uninsured Americans.
They stated theres growing evidence that most of the gain in the number of Americans with health care coverage is due to President Barack Obamas law and not the gradual recovery of the nations economy."
No prominent Republican or Republican group ever argued that the ACA wouldnt lead to more insured Americans. Basic economics shows that when you subsidize something you get more of it so its no surprise that when you give people money to buy insurance they do so. Threatening people with a fine if they dont purchase insurance is also a good way to get more people enrolled. The ACA has both subsidies and a mandate it is no surprise that more people now have insurance.
Because no one has made the argument the ACA would lead to fewer Americans insured it is just a strawman argument for them to knock down. But why?
Well it seems they are trying to distract voters from the real arguments that conservatives had against the ACA by pointing out that Republicans want to repeal the law that gave them insurance. If we take a look at some of the conservative arguments the AP is ignoring we can see they are trumping up its one success to hide its many failures.
Conservatives argued that the law would lead to fewer jobs and cause employers to keep their employees under 30 hours a week because of the employer mandate. The Congressional Budget Office analysis agreed with them when they said the law would cost the economy the equivalent of 2 million jobs.
Republicans also argued that despite its name the law would not make insurance more affordable. The President even promised to save the average American family $2500 a year. According to the Kaiser Foundation the Republicans were correct insurance premiums having increased by $4865 since 2008.
Related to the argument that his health care law would save individuals money the President also promised that it would reduce the deficit by $120 billion over ten years. Republicans argued that was only possible because of the budgetary trick of double counting Medicare savings. The CBO now says that repealing the law would lower the deficit by $474 billion meaning the law will actually add to the deficit.
No matter how many people are coerced or subsidized into buying insurance the ACA will never be successful in lowering the cost of healthcare for the government or for the American people. That is why the AP had to hype the one success that was never in doubt.
