Former president Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law thirteen years ago. Today, President Joe Biden gave a speech at the White House to commemorate this occasion.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known colloquially as ObamaCare, is a federal statute enacted on March 23, 2010, with three primary objectives:
Provide more individuals with affordable health insurance.
Expand Medicaid to include all adults with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty level. (FPL)
Support innovative medical care delivery methods to reduce the overall cost of medical care.
After thirteen years, it is evident that the Republicans were incorrect and the advocates of the ACA were right. In fact, the nation’s uninsured rate has never been lower than it is now, and it’s all because of the reform law.
Equally significant is the fact that health insurance has never been cheaper than it is now. Democrats included lavish new ACA subsidies in the party’s American Rescue Plan in 2021, with some consumers’ premiums falling to nearly or literally zero as a result of the relief package’s investments.
The ACA is effective, popular, affordable, advancing, has withstood far too many legal challenges, and no longer has a target placed on its back by Republicans. To the benefit of tens of millions of American families, this dynamic was difficult to predict thirteen years ago, but it is now reality.
