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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: jlallen who wrote (871649)7/10/2015 11:07:35 AM
From: tejek  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1578563
 
ACA pushes uninsured rate to record low

07/10/15 08:47 AM


By Steve Benen



Just last month, former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), talked with msnbc’s Chris Hayes about the Affordable Care Act, and the Republican did his best to dismiss the law’s striking successes. Most notably, on the uninsured rate, Gregg insisted, “It has not plummeted.”

When the host did his best to highlight reality, the former GOP senator replied, “Your ability to understand your numbers is worse than Obama.”

One can only wonder whether Gregg has seen the latest Gallup report, published this morning, and whether or not the Republican is able to understand the numbers.

The uninsured rate among U.S. adults aged 18 and older was 11.4% in the second quarter of 2015, down from 11.9% in the first quarter. The uninsured rate has dropped nearly six percentage points since the fourth quarter of 2013, just before the requirement for Americans to carry health insurance took effect. The latest quarterly uninsured rate is the lowest Gallup and Healthways have recorded since daily tracking of this metric began in 2008.

Of course, it’s not just 2008. There’s ample reason to believe that uninsured rate has reached its lowest point in American history, starting its precipitous decline once “Obamacare” was put into effect.

One is even tempted to say it’s “plummeted.”


To be sure, Republicans will not be pleased with the trend. Indeed, even looking beyond Judd Gregg, there’s evidence that some GOP lawmakers will simply ignore the inconvenient evidence as if it doesn’t exist.

Just a month ago, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) argued, in all seriousness, “There’s just about as many people uninsured now as there were before the Affordable Care Act.”

This is plainly, demonstrably wrong. The sooner GOP policymakers come to terms with this reality, the better.