Affordable medical care, which seemed destined for the Republican Party’s determination to kill it, has quietly become an integral and accepted part of the American medical system. This year, a record 14.5 million Americans have taken out health insurance through the law’s insurance market, thanks to the Biden administration’s efforts to reverse the disruption of the Trump era and make the program work.
Well known as Obamacare, the ACA is still far from perfect. However, partisan and court battles have finally subsided, and the focus is on the long-term judgment of the history of this once controversial program. This year’s Americans will decide whether to return Congress to a party that has spent 10 years desperately trying to prevent the benefits of Obamacare from realizing, so it’s worth taking a step back and considering this epic achievement.
When then-President Barack Obama and the Democratic Parliament approved the bill in 2010, the US health care system was a national tragedy and a global embarrassment over the ardent resistance of the Republicans. Tens of millions of Americans couldn’t get health insurance because their job didn’t provide insurance or the insurance company had an existing medical condition that could refuse their compensation. To the vast extent of society, preventive care was out of reach, and lifelong medical debt was only one of a heart attack or a car accident.
Even in such a dire situation, the United States was not (and probably still) ready to rethink the notion that healthcare should be treated as a commercial industry rather than a basic human right. As a result, ACA was configured to work with the private insurance industry rather than replacing it, using ideas that originated in conservative think tanks. Premiums were controlled, with a particular focus on ensuring that people in existing conditions were not reduced. Americans who still couldn’t afford to pay their premiums were eligible for government subsidies.
The Republican cries of “Death Panel” and “Ratio Care” have always been nonsense, as the hindsight now proves. Still, the Republican Party’s long-standing efforts to kill Obamacare were relentless. Red states like Missouri have refused to expand Medicare, a key component of the program, despite the federal government’s expense. A series of legislation and proceedings attempting to kill it has been filed for many years. The Trump administration was unable to officially terminate the program and yanked advertising funds to make it harder for Americans to access the program. In fact, the Republicans have done their utmost to withdraw the newly acquired medical insurance that millions of Americans eventually had.
Recent silence from Republican politicians on this issue, which had previously been obsessed with them, shows that even they understand that the fight is over. ACA has become an important resource for keeping Americans healthy, and the sky isn’t falling. Losing it now is devastating. Voters need to remember when they go to vote this fall.
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