Kudos to Steve Benen for wrapping up all this week's good news on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Some of the highlights:
- the number of insurance companies wanting to get in on the Obamacare exchanges is growing, with the potential for more competition in -- and therefore lower -- premium rates;
- ACA guru Charles Gaba is predicting that, contrary to wingnut declamations, "at least 90% of the original 8.2 million exchange QHP enrollees have paid their first premiums";
- the rate of uninsured has dropped by 38% in New Jersey, by 40% in Minnesota, and by 50% in Kentucky;
- Medicare is growing slower as a percent of the economy and on a per person basis, a trend that could mean billions in savings for the Federal Government.
As Jon Chait points out in a linked article, information surrounding Obamacare is "asymmetrical," in that you'll get a discussion of the good and the bad news from the left, but
Conservatives, even the most wonkish ones, have engaged in a one-sided propaganda effort. If you get your news about Obamacare from conservative sources, you have heard an endless succession of horror predictions that, when not borne out, have gone uncorrected.And if the "mainstream" media reports it at all, they apply the "Chuck Todd maxim:" it's "not my job to sort out the facts."
