Obamacare Might Be the Best-Managed New Social Program in 80 Years
Is Obamacare a big flop? That depends on whom you ask.
The program's proponents can point to an estimated 9 million newly insured Americans -- 3 million who are now covered under their parents' plans until age 26, 2 million who've bought policies on the Obamacare exchanges, and more than 4 million now signed up for Medicaid -- as proof that Obamacare is having its intended effect. Opponents note that
the low percentage of young enrollees undermines promises of a better risk pool, to say nothing of the program's exorbitant costs, which include anywhere from about $300 million to more than $2 billion just to set up and operate the maligned Healthcare.gov website.
But if you ask political historians, you might be surprised. The United States has been rolling out major new social-insurance programs for eight decades now, beginning with Social Security's first tax levies in 1937. While Social Security and the Medicare-Medicaid combination were certainly more ambitious reforms than Obamacare from a coverage and governance perspective, their early costs and rollout hiccups can be instructive for anyone fretting about costly "death spirals" or unintended budgetary consequences. And there were hiccups.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/01/18/obamacare-might-be-the-best-managed-new-social-pro/?
