Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
One of the things that polling tells us is that folks "hate" the Affordable Care Act, because it has been demonized in the media and serves as a substitute for President Obama himself ("ObamaCare"), but when you ask them about specific provisions of the Affordable Care Act, these same folks want and expect the benefits that the law provides.
As H.L. Mencken once observed,“No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
One of the more popular provisions is clearly the one extending coverage to young adults. Steve Benen writes today, Health care for 6.6 million young adults:
A new report quantifies just how important this protection has become.
About 6.6 million young adults signed up for health coverage through their parents' insurance plans in the first year after a new provision in the federal health law took effect, according to estimates in a study released Friday.
As part of the law, most insurance plans offered by employers to their workers had to allow parents to enroll dependents on their plans up to the age of 26, starting in September 2010. Previously, parents had been able to include children only up to their 19th birthdays, or until the age of 22 if the children were full-time college students.
The estimate was published in this Commonwealth Fund study, released this morning.
Of course, this provision in the law will disappear if Republicans on the Supreme Court strike down the entirety of the law — the ruling may be handed down as early as Monday — or if Republican policymakers repeal the law in 2013.
But as it turns out, the same GOP officials who've insisted that Obamacare is the single worst proposal in the history of Western Civilization, and who've sworn up and down that a stake must be driven through every letter of the law, have started to give some of these popular measures a second look.
Sahil Kapur reported this morning on the "wiggle room" Republicans have created for themselves, after years of rhetoric about destroying everything in the law.
Senate Republican Conference Vice Chair Roy Blunt: "[The under-26 provision is] one of the things I think should continue." […]
House GOP Policy Committee Chairman Tom Price: "[T]here are some things that have been instituted that a lot of folks have begun to rely upon and plan — make their family plans — based upon. Twenty-six-year-olds being on their parents' insurance is one of them."
Senate GOP Leadership Member John Barrasso: "Well, [the under-26 policy is] something that I and other Republicans have supported from the beginning."
It should bring some solace to 6.6 million American young people and their families that when Republicans vow to kill the entirety of Obamacare, they don't mean the entirety of Obamacare.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
And another ad listing all the benefits already available from the ACA and those benefits coming soon. I think that if Obama did that, opinion on the ACA would change swiftly and dramatically.
That’s EXACTLY the type of quote Obama should put in a political ad and broadcast on every medium possible.
I find it amazing that a majority want the ACA repealed in its’ entirety, but when polled on specific benefits of the ACA, they like it. Some really poor messaging by the Dems from day one.
You be healthy also.
Yeah, “funny”…they do that too a lot of things, don’t they? Good read:http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/06/08/secret-emails-show-romneys-approval-of-health-mandate/
o add to the ideological confusion surrounding Obama’s plan, Romney’s health scheme was inspired by Stuart M. Butler of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank. In the 1989 Heritage document “A National Health System for America,” Butler proposed that “every resident of the U.S. must, by law, be enrolled in an adequate health care plan to cover major health care costs.”
“Americans with sufficient means would no longer be able to be ‘free riders’ on society by avoiding sensible health insurance expenditures and relying on others to pay for care in an emergency or in retirement,” Butler wrote. “All households would be required to protect themselves from major medical costs by purchasing health insurance … The principle of mandatory family protection is central to a universal health care system in America.” If a family failed to enroll, “a fine might be imposed.”
I read that same singlepayer article:)I have tried to share info on the pcip plan too…a friend has epilepsy. Thanks for the info! Be healthy.
Looks familiar…..selective memory.
Yes, funny how the Republicans supported the individual mandate… until a Democrat embraced it and made it law. Although, it was really a Republican who first made the individual mandate law, but they don’t like to talk about that… or the fact that the ACA was modeled after it.
I just read an interesting article on the big 3 automakers and their push for single payer, http://www.politicususa.com/big-automakers-push-single-payer.html… in Canada! Now if we could just get them to push for single payer here…
I tell everyone I know about the benefits of ACA, especially as I have benefitted and as my employer, a home health agency, has benefitted from ACA as regards to Medicare changes that have been instituted. I was even able to help out a friend with a pre-existing condition (which doesn’t go into effect for private insurance until 2014) by directing her to the pcip (pre-existing condition insurance plan) program being offered in the interim. See https://www.pcip.gov/. Her pcip plan is even cheaper than my employer-provided insurance; she’s paying in a month what I pay in a week in premiums.
Correct, and on another note..the individual mandate was originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation. They have flopped and flipped, but the facts are just that, the facts.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/05/13/172085/heritage-flip-flop/
The other inconvenient truth is that most of the components of the ACA are very popular with the public, and the more people understand about this law, the more they appreciate the things that are in it.
Glad to see that you are able to benefit from this law…the best thing that you can do now, is tell people how this works and why it is a good thing…for people and the economy at large. SO glad that you are being helped!
Repbulicans have also recently expressed support for the ban on insurance companies denying insurance for a pre-existing condition as well as keeping the no lifetime limit. Unfortunately, without the individual mandate, these provisions will only accelerate rising health care costs and eventually cause the healthcare industry to collapse entirely. On the bright side, this may hasten our move to single payer, “Medicare for all”.