A couple of things, including a year of Obamacare
By Winthrop Quigley, Albuquerque Journal, N.M. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
A recent Journal poll of likely voters asked, among other things, if they felt the Affordable Care Act was a success or a failure. About half said it was a failure, about a third said it was a success and the rest didn't know.
That result is pretty consistent with national polling.
It turns out, though, that people like Obamacare if you ask them about specific provisions of the act. Polling by Kaiser and
Whether one thinks of the ACA as a success or failure depends in some measure on one's political views, certainly. But the Obama administration over the years has sent such a muddled message about the act and what the public could expect of it, a voter would be hard pressed to know how to define success.
The
"We are demanding the insurance industry no longer run away from risk" by refusing to pay for people's care, Epstein said. "You make money and a viable business by embracing health risk and managing it."
A Kaiser review found that average premiums offered on insurance exchanges will "decrease slightly" in the coming open enrollment period. Exchange-based premiums in
Nationally, about 19 million people are receiving coverage they would not have received absent the ACA, according to
The federal government says the number of insurers offering exchange-based products is increasing, and that hospitals are seeing fewer uninsured patients.
Government costs haven't been as high as had been projected. The
Individuals, however, aren't doing quite as well financially. Low-wage employees who get employer-based insurance are paying a larger share of the insurance premiums and getting worse coverage, according to Kaiser.
In
Even in
For the record
In last Thursday's UpFront, I reported that poverty had increased by 20.8 percent in
I can't even guess how I messed up so badly, so I will simply beg the reader's indulgence.
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to
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