Forbes September 23, 2020
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, was principally intended to improve health insurance markets for individuals and small businesses, lower health costs, and increase the number of people with insurance. It largely failed. Health insurance markets are only afloat because of massive federal subsidies and premiums and out-of-pocket obligations significantly increased for families. While the ACA has led to about 13 million more people with Medicaid, many more have been harmed. Middle-income families without employer-provided coverage and small businesses and their workers have largely fared worse from higher health care costs as did the nation’s taxpayers who are responsible for funding all of the law’s new spending. (For an in-depth review of the ACA’s performance ten years after its...