Liberals in rose-colored glasses consider ObamaCare a victory
Ever since ObamaCare supposedly hit the arbitrary target of 7 million sign-ups by March 31, its supporters have been taking the most premature victory lap since conservative proponents of the Iraq War (like me) crowed about the results of the three elections inside Iraq in 2005 and how they demonstrated the country was on the verge of a historic peace.
Its all over but the shouting: ObamaCare is working, said Eugene Robinson in Tuesdays Washington Post. All the naysaying in the world cant drown out mounting evidence that the Affordable Care Act, President Obamas signature domestic achievement, is a real success.
Those words summarize the relief of many liberals who plunged into despair last fall when the HealthCare.gov site proved to be a $600 million disaster. So relieved was Ezra Klein of Vox.com that he blithely claimed the sudden resignation last Friday of Kathleen Sebelius, the top administration official in charge of the ObamaCare rollout, was actually a mark of the policys great success.
It takes a very special pair of rose-colored glasses to ignore the simple reality that officials almost never resign when the policy theyve been working to implement has triumphed. But rose-colored glasses are the only ones ObamaCare fans are allowed to buy from Warby Parker these days.
Yes, its true that six months after that catastrophe, people can actually sign up for ObamaCare. Its also likely true that the programs worst possible fate in which it literally collapses on its own because its overall insurance pool holds far more sick people than healthy people has been avoided.
But the idea that, by meeting their obligations under the law, those 7 million signers-up have thereby indicated their support for ObamaCare, or their approval of it, or have ensured its success, is simply delusional.
In the first place, we dont yet know how many people who didnt have insurance before now do which was the entire point of this exercise. But its not a lot. According to an analysis by Avik Roy of Forbes, the number might be as low as 1.4 million.
Thats 1.4 million out of an overall uninsured population of 31 million to 47 million.
The other 6 million have gone into the program because circumstances compelled them to as in, they already had insurance until it got canceled due to the coming of ObamaCare.
Second, even by the administrations own calculations, as many as 1.5 million of the sign-ups havent paid their premiums yet. Standard accounting principles say such people shouldnt be considered covered by the law.
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Liberals in rose-colored glasses consider ObamaCare a victory
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