The chart above was made from information in a new report by the National Center for Health Statistics. It shows that the percentage of Americans with no health insurance has dropped to a record low of 9%. That shows that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is working to reduce the number of uninsured Americans.
Some of that 9% is people who simply refuse to comply with the law -- either because they have bought into the Republican lies about Obamacare, or because they simply hate President Obama and don't want to see the program succeed. It is succeeding though, and if the 20 holdout states would expand Medicaid, then that 9% uninsured could be significantly reduced. That refusal (by Republican state governments) is a callous political ploy -- and condemns about 17,000 people to die each year (because they didn't have insurance that would provide them with preventative care).
That 9% uninsured is a much better percentage than we have ever had in the past -- but we must not forget that translates into about 28.7 million people without insurance. And even if every state expanded Medicaid, there would still be a few million people without health insurance. That's because Obamacare was not designed to provide every American with health insurance.
I think it would be a serious mistake to repeal Obamacare (because that would take insurance away from millions of people), but it is getting clearer all the time that Obamacare did not go far enough. Other developed nations cover all their citizens with health insurance (and at a lower per person cost) -- and there is no reason why the United States can't do the same thing.
We need to go farther. We need to institute a government-run, single-payer health insurance system. That's what Medicare is, and it's worked very well. We need to create a Medicare-like program that covers all American citizens. It is simply immoral to not do so.
