Tuesday, March 07, 2017

A Low Bar for Accomplishment

Dean Baker has long been a promoter of Obamacare, and begins an article today (it’s a criticism of the GOP bill replacing Obamacare) with this summary of the program that he and the Democrats have lauded for years as, “The most significant legislation is several generations.”

“In the years before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) the uninsured population peaked at just over 50 million people. It fell sharply when the main provisions of the ACA took effect, falling to less than 28 million in recent quarters.”

I’m going to ignore his “just over” and “less than” modifiers because if the number of insured fell to, say, five million, I’m sure he would not refer to that as “less than 28 million.” In fact, I suspect if it fell to 27,995,584 he would not refer to it as “less than 28 million,” he would say “less than 27 million.”

So I’m just going to assume that Dean Baker knows that the number of uninsured went from 50 million to 28 million people and ask him a simple question about the “greatest piece of legislation in five decades.”

Why did it take a full year to pass a 2700 page bill that needed five years to deal with less than half of the problem?

1 comment:

  1. bruce9:14 AM

    That site /article seems blatantly partisan. Not that I think much of the GOP plan, I don't. A non-partisan impartial analysis would be nice. Probably impossible to get, though.

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