The Missing Center by Noah H. Harris

Author:Noah H. Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510782853
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2024-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Barack Obama

The Affordable Care Act

2016

Because of Obamacare, another twenty million Americans now know the financial security of health insurance. So do another three million children, thanks in large part to the Affordable Care Act and the improvements, the enhancements that we made to the Children’s Health Insurance Program. And the net result is that never in American history has the uninsured rate been lower than it is today.

The Affordable Care Act will likely be remembered as one of the signature achievements of Barack Obama’s presidency. The 2010 law expanded access to health care to twenty-five million uninsured individuals and was the first successful major reform to the corporate-payer model since Medicare and Medicaid were established over fifty years before. Obamacare—as it is frequently called—was controversial at the time it was passed. Supporters argued that it was hard for those without employer-sponsored health insurance to access affordable plans. Opponents said it was too costly, and that it impeded on people’s personal right to self-determination—the right to not have health insurance—and that the private sector was better suited to come up with solutions than the federal government. History ultimately proved the naysayers wrong. From 2010 to 2015, the uninsured rate declined from 16 percent to 9.1 percent, or 20 million individuals, with an additional 20 million individuals believed to be covered who would not have been without the law.

This speech was given by Obama in 2016, near the end of his second term in office and six years after the Affordable Care Act was passed. Obama used the speech to talk about his signature piece of legislation, giving real-world examples of individuals who it had helped. The controversy over Obamacare had largely faded at this point in the president’s second term. The legislation proved to be more successful than people thought. It enrolled millions on insurance plans, did not bankrupt the country, and was becoming viewed as providing a net positive. By early 2017, the majority of Americans had a favorable opinion of the law.

Obama took some rare rhetorical moves in this speech. He showed unusual humility as a sitting president, acknowledging that the ACA was not perfect and needed to be reformed. He also cited the concerns of the average American by calling out real people who the ACA benefited. This struck a delicate balance between promoting his accomplishments and humanizing the speech with heartwarming stories while at the same time noting the law could do better, citing areas where the ACA didn’t live up to its potential. Some of these weaknesses were due to the political compromises made six years earlier to get the ACA passed, and some were because in any incredibly complex government-backed program, there are inevitable tweaks to be made.

History is often the best judge of policy. What proved to be one of the most controversial issues of the 2008 presidential campaign—whether there should be a nationally-supported health insurance program—is taken as a given by most people today. The ACA proved to be extremely popular and

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