New Census Dept. Figures Show Obamacare Is Working

Perhaps the best statistics for how the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is working comes from the new official Census Department figures just released. This figures show that the health care reform has had an effect on the percentage (and number) of Americans who have, or don't have, health insurance.

It shows that the percentage of Americans with no health insurance of any kind has dropped from 13.3% in 2013 to 10.4% in 2014  (and we know that 2015 figures, not included in this report, will show another slight decrease in that percentage). Is Obamacare working? Yes -- but it could be working even better.

A major reason why Obamacare is not working as well as it could is the refusal of nearly half the states (including some very big states like Texas) to expand Medicaid. This expansion would have been completely paid for by the federal government for 10 years (and paid 90% of after that), but those states (controlled by Republicans) don't care. They are willing to sentence many thousands of Americans to death (by denying them health insurance and thus, access to preventative care) to play political games (showing their disapproval of a Black president).

The number of uninsured Americans could be significantly reduced further if those states would comply with the heal care reform. But while Obamacare has fixed a number of problems with our health care system (such as eliminating pre-existing conditions) and has reduced the non-insured, the sad fact is that it was never designed to cover 100% of American's citizens. In my opinion, that is its biggest failing.

We still need to go further in fixing our system of medical care. I believe we need to institute a single-payer, government-run system of health insurance (something like Medicare for all). Doing so would cover every single American with health insurance, and it would have another benefit -- it would significantly reduce the amount of money spent on medical care in this country. We know that other countries that have this system don't pay nearly as much per capita for health care that the United States pays.

Sadly, this will probably not happen soon. The political will, among the members of Congress or the public, just does not exist for the change yet. But it will come. There is simply no alternative if we truly believe health care is a right for all citizens.