American politics. It has been debated, protested, screamed about and has already made one

trip to the Supreme Court. It has been over a year since open enrollment, so it might

be a good

time to ask, is Obamacare working?

There are many ways to look at the success or failure of a healthcare system, but lets

just

look at the big picture. One clear sign of success many people point to is the decreasing

number of uninsured Americans. Polls from Gallup, the CDC and the New England Journal

of

Medicine all show that the number of uninsured is going down. One poll from the Health Return

Monitoring Survey saw the number of uninsured drop 30% between 2013 and 2014.

Another major aspect of the Affordable Care Act is to be, well, affordable. And there

is

evidence that costs are down, partially due to an increase in competition between health

insurers. There are more people insured now than ever before and as a result there are

more

health insurance providers popping up to compete for those customers. This has been directly

connected to lower premiums across the country. Many studies have found that premium rates

are either increasing at a slower rate than normal or in some cases, actually decreasing

Health care spending has also gone down. But Obamacare isn’t really responsible for this.

Healthcare spending has been trending downwards all around the world and in the US the

recession is seen as the main reason for this. Experts believe that Obamacare will actually

make health care spending increase in the future. The more people that have health insurance

will mean more money spent on health care.

One big factor in judging how a health care system is working is the health of the nation.

Whether or not Obamacare is helping Americans be healthier, we don’t know yet. Obamacare

hasn’t been around long enough to answer that question.

And of course Obamacare has had negative effects on some. People making middle-class

wages have reported hardships in paying their medical insurance premiums because they

don’t qualify for any government subsidies to help relieve the financial pressure. There

are also

states that haven’t implemented Medicaid expansion policies which have created gaps,

where

some Americans don’t qualify for one helpful program because they make too much money and

another helpful program because they make too little.

Obviously this does not cover all aspects of Obamacare. But the facts are still there

the three

main issues: there are more people insured, health care costs have not skyrocketed and

the

health insurance industry is growing.

Want to avoid going to the doctor's office more than you should? Check out this video

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