There appears to be an insurmountable difference of opinion over whether the PPACA is “working” or not. Here’s what the president said a week ago:
What’s more, the thing is working. I mean, part of what’s bizarre about this whole thing is we haven’t had a lot of conversation about the horrors of Obamacare because none of them come to pass. You got 16 million people who’ve gotten health insurance. The overwhelming majority of them are satisfied with the health insurance. It hasn’t had an adverse effect on people who already had health insurance. The only effect it’s had on people who already had health insurance is they now have an assurance that they won’t be prevented from getting health insurance if they’ve got a preexisting condition, and they get additional protections with the health insurance that they do have.
The costs have come in substantially lower than even our estimates about how much it would cost. Health care inflation overall has continued to be at some of the lowest levels in 50 years. None of the predictions about how this wouldn’t work have come to pass.
and here’s Stephen Moore’s retort:
Sometimes it seems President Obama lives in a parallel universe where facts are floating around to be plucked out of suspended animation. Never more so than on the effects of the Affordable Care Act.
after which he takes the president’s claims seriatim and presents evidence that there is, at the very least, room for doubt.
I think whether the PPACA is working or not is an unanswerable question if only because the operative definitions of “working” are so different. Some of its opponents reject any evidence that it might be working and vice versa. Some of the PPACA’s supporters will deem it to be working if one person who otherwise would not have healthcare insurance has it because of the plan or, even lower, as long as the law survives it’s working because of the way in which it has changed the nature of the debate over healthcare reform, as acknowledged even by William Kristol.
You do know that Moore has been found beyond loose in his use of numbers? If you read his retort, I hope the problems with his claims are obvious. Whether or not it is working is a matter of definition, on that I would agree, but it is also clear that the apocalyptic predictions made by many on the right have simply not come to pass. Costs have slowed down, even if we are not sure why. More people really are insured, about what was predicted. The big loss in jobs predicted, and the big shift to part-time work, don’t appear to have materialized yet either.
http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/stephen_moore_heritage_foundation_paul_krugman_kansas_city_star.php
Steve
BTW, Joe Flower reminds us that after the predictions of large increases in premiums last year the actual increase was zero.
http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2015/06/14/obamacare-set-to-spike-um/
As Dave said before, I think it’s too early to tell (one way or another) given the long roll-out and the time until it reaches steady-state.