Edited by Lianne Lee
Also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Obamacare was signed into law 12 years ago today (Roland, 2019). It had 3 main goals; making affordable health insurance available to more Americans, expanding the Medicaid program, and supporting innovative medical care delivery methods to help lower costs of healthcare (US Department of Health & Human Services, n.d).
This 2700-page act would bring to America the most significant changes to the health insurance and health care delivery systems since Medicare and Medicaid (Edquist & Mark, 2012). With significant changes comes significant controversy. According to a CNN poll with 1030 Americans, 59% opposed the legislation while only 39% favoured it. 62% of the polled Americans believed that the cost of their medical care would increase with this act. Only 19% of Americans think that their families would be better off with this legislation, and 47% believe that they would be worse off (CNN, 2010).
However, as time went on, the act received more and more support. An online poll in 2012 showed 44% support and 56% opposition (Zengerle, 2012). Then, in 2015, a poll showed that 47% of Americans approved the law while only 44% percent disapproved of it, the first time a poll had shown that the majority favoured the act (Dutton et al., 2015).
The term Obamacare first appeared in a journal article written by Keanne Schulte Scott, where she writes “We will soon see a “Giuliani-care’ and ‘Obama-care’ to go along with ‘McCain-Care,’ ‘ Edwards-care,’ and a totally revamped and remodelled ‘Hillary-care’ from the 1990s.’. In May of 2007, Mitt Romney introduced the term into public discourse with a campaign speech in Iowa, criticizing Democratic health care plans. On August 15 of 2011, Barack Obama himself uses the word in a speech, saying that “I have no problem with people saying ‘Obama cares.’ I do care.” (Cox et al, 2012).
References
CNN. (2010, March 22). CNN Opinion Research Poll. CNN. Retrieved March 20, 2022, from
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/03/22/rel5a.pdf
Cox, A., Desanatis, A., Parlapiano, A., & White, J. (2012, March 25). Fighting to Control the
Meaning of 'Obamacare'. The New York Times. Retrieved March 20, 2022, from
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/03/25/us/politics/
fighting-to-control-the-meaning-of-obamacare.html
Dunkelberger, L. (2019, July 11). Effort to overturn Obamacare could have widespread
impact on health coverage in Florida. Florida Phoenix. Retrieved March 20, 2022, from
https://floridaphoenix.com/2019/07/11/effort-to-overturn-obamacare-could-have-
widespread-impact-on-health-coverage-in-florida/
Dutton, S., Pinto, J. De, Salvanto, A., & Backus, F. (2015, June 22). Poll: Obamacare and the
Supreme Court. CBS News. Retrieved March 20, 2022, from
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-obamacare-and-the-supreme-court/
Edquist, D. J., & Mark, J. E. (2012, June 29). Analysis: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds the
Affordable Care Act: Roberts Rules? The National Law Review. Retrieved March 20,
2022, from https://www.natlawreview.com/article/analysis-us-supreme-court-upholds-
affordable-care-act-roberts-rules
US Department of Health & Human Services. (n.d.). About the Affordable Care Act.
HHS.gov. Retrieved March 20, 2022, from https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-
aca/index.html
Zengerle, P. (2012, June 24). Most Americans oppose health law but like provisions.
Reuters. Retrieved March 20, 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-
campaign-healthcare-idUSBRE85N01M20120624
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