Like hungry wolves, those who have loathed Obamacare from Day One are circling, howling, eager to attack and kill that law once the new president takes office.
If it is repealed, will its die-hard enemies replace it with anything? Anything at all? We’d better pay attention because health-care access will again be one of the hottest topics in this new year. Ugly fights about it could well cause the nation to become even more divided.
To be sure, the Affordable Care Act – even its proponents have long acknowledged – needs some major tweaking to make it more “affordable” in some cases. Detractors like to pounce on premium increases as a sign of doom. They are happily oblivious of all the good outcomes the ACA has brought to millions of people, including the 20 million Americans who were finally able to get health-care insurance for the first time.
Those who maintain stubbornly and even gleefully that Obamacare is a total disaster are not telling the truth – far from it. The following are facts pertaining to the ACA’s effects in Minnesota as reported in a major study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:
- The uninsured rate in Minnesota declined by 51 percent since the ACA started in 2010. That means 250,000 Minnesotans were able to get health coverage who could not in the pre-ACA years.
- Most Minnesotans (3,319,000) have coverage through employers. They, along with people covered under Medicaid or Medicare, have benefited directly and indirectly thanks to the ACA. Those changes include no denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions. More than 2,318,000 Minnesotans have some kind of pre-existing condition, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Other good changes that affect all Minnesotans with insurance are the following:
- No imposition of annual or lifetime caps on coverage. Before the ACA, 2,043,000 Minnesotans were susceptible to those limits, cutting out coverage in dire crises when it would be most needed.
- Children can stay on parents’ health plans until age 26.
- Certain types of free preventive care are required, including cancer screenings, that can nip medical problems in the bud. Such screenings not only save lives but help prevent huge costs that can happen when treatable problems grow into exacerbated, complicated (and very costly) medical conditions.
- We constantly hear from the chorus of naysayers that Obamacare has caused premiums to skyrocket. That is true in some cases, but in most cases premiums are actually lower than the double-digit increases in the years predating the ACA. The average premiums for Minnesotans with employer-sponsored coverage increased an average of 4.0 percent annually from the ACA years of 2010-15. Before that time, those rates averaged a 7.2 percent increase per year in the previous decade.
- The 80/20 rule requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 cents of each premium dollar received on health care or related improvements (instead of administrative costs like salaries or marketing). Those who don’t comply must give refunds to customers.
- Thanks to the ACA, thousands of Minnesotans suffering from mental-health problems are now getting care. With improved access to treatment, there are an estimated 3,000 fewer Minnesotans suffering from depression. There is much more to be done, but the ACA has helped start such improvements.
- Medicare recipients are benefiting in two major ways due to the ACA. One is lower costs for prescription drugs because the ACA is closing the so-called “drug donut hole,” a period in which drug costs can balloon for a Medicare recipient. According to the HHS report, 73,484 Minnesota seniors saved $72 million on drug-spending in 2015. That’s an average of $981 per beneficiary. Another way Medicare seniors benefit is the free preventive services and elimination of cost-sharing for such things as cancer screenings. Many serious health problems were discovered thanks to such screenings, preventing some catastrophic costs and outcomes later on.
- Tax credits now help 47,266 Minnesotans with moderate and middle incomes receive tax credits averaging $203 per month to help them afford premiums for plans accessed via HealthCare.gov.
There are many more beneficial outcomes of the ACA too numerous to mention here. To learn more, Google U.S. Department of Human Services and then type in “Affordable Care Act” on its website.
Those who learn the facts about Obamacare (not just its problems) will be far less inclined to howl for its demise. They will instead insist on keeping it, with changes; or they will insist those who want to kill it will have something at least as good to put in its place.
