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Denker 1 Brandon Denker Professor Berret English 1010 29 November 2013 Obamacare On March 23, 2010, President Obama

signed the Affordable Care Act. The law puts in place comprehensive health insurance reforms that will roll out over four years and beyond. While condoning research on The Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare I have found many opinions that back and support the Affordable Care Act and many that do not. This is an important issue in our life as Americans today. I will show you four main points about the Affordable care act. First I will talk about the benefits of the Affordable Care Act and what was originally promised to Americans; secondly I will show how and why the affordable care act is will actually be more expensive for Americans. The third point I will make is how the Affordable Care Acts implantation in the United States has not been a successful, and lastly I will show why we should not support the Affordable Care Act. While researching the Affordable Care Act these main components seem to be the most talked about and important in what is happening today with the Affordable Care Act. I believe my research will allow you to make your own opinion about the Affordable Care Act. Through my research and these main points you will see how the Affordable Care Act will change America forever.

Denker 2 Healthcare is important there is no denying that. It is important to be healthy. It is important to be able to receive proper health assistance when you are injured or sick, form knowledgeable doctors. Having good healthcare even plays a large role in the career path you choose, because you need it. Often times people will take a job with a lesser overall salary to accept a job with a better benefits package. In a benefits package healthcare is often the largest benefits offered. The job market in the United States has surely changed over the years our Nation. The job market in the United States has changed due to the merger of globalization and i.t revolution that has unfolded over the past two decades (Friedman). With a job market changing as Friedman mentions he supports the fact that the high-wage, medium-skilled job is over (Friedman). Meaning the middle class of America is running out of jobs, not because they are no longer available but because jobs now require a higher skill set to obtain a reasonable income. If you do not obtain this skill set, it is harder to find a job which will create a sufficient income for you and your family. The Affordable Care Act as announced by President Obama would do those who cannot obtain a job of high-skill or high paying a favor. It would protect them so they have opportunity to seek medical assistance though they do not have funds or employment provided coverage to do so. The Affordable Care Act will also allow those who have never had insurance to find a plan that is fit for them .With the Affordable Care Act it would provide health insurance to anyone making up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line (Kingsley). This seems like the right thing to do more people are covered, prices of health insurance will be cheaper to Americans, and everyone wins. While I would like to say in a perfect world everyone wins. We do not live in a perfect world. The affordable care act is something that seems to be a great idea, where everyone benefits. The thing that people forget is, if we are going to offer more healthcare service than

Denker 3 ever before for a cheaper rate then something has to change somewhere else. Meaning with lower costs elsewhere, higher cost result on the other side of the spectrum. The largest impact of the Affordable Care Act will be felt by young middle class citizens (Fleischer). So, lets start there. The Obama administration came out with a report arguing that 1 million single adults between the ages of 18 and 35 will be eligible for an Obamacare insurance plan costing less than $50 a month (Fleischer). Seems to be a reasonable price. So for Fleischer a 34-year-old with a taxable income hovering right around the Obamacare subsidy level who, for the last several years, has purchased a relatively inexpensive catastrophic health insurance plan from Blue Shield. I get to see the doctor four times a year for a $30 co-pay, and I wont have to spend the rest of my life working off the debt if I get hit by a bus (Fleischer) . Fleischer later received a letter that was informing him of the cancelation of his current insurance due to new requirements for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. I am being funneled into the closest equivalent plan under the new California health exchange, and my monthly premium is going to rise by nearly 43% to $214 a month (Fleischer). A drastic increase for a healthy middle class citizen. Fleischer is one of almost 80 million Americans that could and will most likely have to make this switch. Seeing these numbers terrifies me as a 25 year old who is in school and works full time. It sends a message to me that I had better get a really good job out of college and hopefully my employer provides quality health insurance for me. Seeing how I will be impacted heavily by the Affordable Care Act. Other concerns of mine have to do with the basic roll-out of the Affordable Care Act. With the absurd price increases are bad, the fact that the website marketplace healthcare.gov, the main marketplace for the government healthcare has been extremely challenging for Americans to navigate and use causes another scare for me as an American.

Denker 4 People who had once supported the Affordable Care Act are quickly changing their minds. Enrollment numbers are far less than what were expected with the initial rollout. Around 106,000 enrolled in new plans during October with approximately 27,000 coming from states where the federal government is running the exchange (Sargent). Going back to what we had seen before the Affordable Care Act is proving to be nothing of what it was all cracked up to be. The incongruity between what was promised and what has been delivered is a recipe for political problems in a vacuum -- especially coming after all of the other problems with which the Web site and the law have been plagued(Cillizza and Blake). If we cannot even introduce the website marketplace properly and people cannot sign up because of flaws in the website, people are going to turn the other direction immediately. We must note that over 975,000 have been determined eligible for a marketplace but havent yet chosen a plan (Sargent). The American people have reason to be scared about what is happening with the Affordable Care Act. The numbers are showing it, the unrest in our government is showing it. Our own President publically apologized to the United States people who had there health care plans cancelled when he specifically said they would not be canalled. Why are these things happening? To me it seems as if we are trying to fix something that is not broken. We need to be careful in moving forward from here. Though we may have been told the Affordable Care Act would roll-out differently, it has yet to do so. The numbers do not lie. The numbers are not good for the roll-out, middleclass Americans will suffer more than anyone from the Affordable Care Act. What about middleclass families? How much of a rate of increase will families see? Everything changes when you have a family. Your expenses, the amount of money you once made is not as much as it used to be because you have another mouth to feed and another body to take care of. President Obama said In an Obama administration,

Denker 5 well lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year.. Well do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States (Conover). As all of us now know, that did not happen. Conover also focuses on the fact that Obamacare will boost health spending by roughly $621 billion (Conover). So in turn for a typical family of four the increase will amount to between 2014 and 2022, the increase in national health spending (which the Medicare actuaries specifically attribute to the law) amounts to $7,450 per family of 4 (Conover). Once again the numbers are scary. The facts are that the purposed Affordable Care Act has proven thus far to be anything but affordable. What we are seeing here is classic case of government trying to over step and over involve themselves in the private sector. Our government is trying control where people spend their money for health insurance. It has been proven in history that the more government steps in to control financial operations the more often they fail. I chose to research the Affordable Care Act because I truly do think this is an issue that as Americans is going change course of possible success of our country for years to come. The Affordable Care Act when originally introduced to the United States had nothing but good intentions. Though the possible outcomes form what were presented to us has proven to be unrealistic. Many people have that already had health insurance and who have always had health insurance are finding themselves with cancelled health plans. They are also finding themselves without the plan the actually want. There are a lot of unhappy people right now. The president is popularity with his country. In fact Just 39 percent support the health care law, as opposed to 45 percent who said the same in a Q poll done in early October. And a majority of voters (52 percent) said Obama was not "honest and trustworthy," the first time a majority of Americans have felt that way (Cillizza and Blake). This is why the Affordable Care Act will change America. I believe if the Affordable Care Act collapses on itself it would be the best thing to

Denker 6 come of the Affordable Care Act. Despite the fact that if it does Americans will have to find a way to get there old cancelled insurance plans back with out having too much of a waiting period in between doing so. If the Affordable Care Act survives then I truly think Americans will have be let down by the Obama administration. The middle class and young people of the United States will pay entirely too much for health insurance. People will not get the care that they want and or deserve. If the Affordable Health Care Act hopes to survive then some changes need to be instituted immediately. The glitches on the website, they must be fixed. People with cancelled plans who liked their plan should be able to keep their plan, as it was promised to them in the first place. If these simple solutions are not possible then I think we should cut our losses and go back to the way things were.

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Work Cited Bash, Dana. "White House officials get earful from Democrats on Obamacare." www.cnn.com 13 November 2013. Web. CNN Newsource . 13 November 2013 Cillizza, Chris and Blake, Aaron . "How President Obama can stop the bleeding on Obamacare." www.washingtonpost.com. 13 November 2013 . Web. The Washington Post. 13 November 2013 Conver, Chris. "Obamacare Will Increase Health Spending By $7,450 For a Typical Family of Four." www.forbes.com. 23 September 2013. Web. Forbes.com. 7 November 2013. Dann, Carrie. "GOP pounces on Obamacare figure." www.nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com." 13 November 2013 . Web. NBCNews.com . 13 November 2013 . Douthat, Ross. "Obamacare, Failing Ahead of Schedule." www.newyorktimes.com . 19 October, 2013. Web. The New York Times Company 10 November 2013 . Fleischer, Mathew. "Obamacare: Unfair to the young middle class, punished enough already." www.latimes.com, 29 October 13. Web. LA Times. 9 November 13. Friedman,Thomas. "Why I (Still) Support Obamacare." http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/friedman-why-i-still-supportobamacare.html?_r=0. 9 November 2013. Web. 12 November 2013.: Kingsley, Caroline.Ginzburg, Allen. "Attack on the middle class: How Obamacare is hurting those who are already in pain." http://redalertpolitics.com/2013/11/10/attack-on-the-middle-class-how-

Denker 8 obamacare-is-hurting-those-who-are-already-in-pain/. 10 November 2013. Web. redalertpolitics.com 13 November 2013 . Halper, Evan. "Obamacare backers scramble to post positive spin on enrollment figures." www.latimes.com, 13 November 2013. Web. LA Times. 13 November 2013. Lisa M. Ruth . "Efforts to repeal Obamacare focus on January 2014" www.washingtontimes.com. 13 November 2013. Web. The Washington Times, LLC . 13 November 2013 Levy, Nolan N. "As Key parts of Obamacare kick in, the stakes are high for both parties." www.latimes.com, LA Times, 29 September 2013. Web. 10 November 2013. McCombs, Brady. "Utah To Become First State With State- Federal Health Exchange." www.huffingtonpost.com.10 May 2013 . Web. TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc .13 November 2013. "ObamaCare's Medical Expansion supported by Summit County City Council." www.parkrecord.com. Park Record, 8 March 2013. 8 November 2013. Sargent, Greg. " What the Obamacare numbers really tell us." http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/11/13/what-the-obamacareenrollment-numbers-really-tell-us/ ." 13 November 2013. Web. The Washington Post . 13 November 2013 . Taylor, Bob . " Obamacare: It is the U.S. in crisis, not the white House ." http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/political-potpourri/2013/nov/12/uscrisis-not-white-hous/ . 12 November 2013 . Web . The Washington Times, Llc . 12 November 2013 .

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