A report by The Commonwealth Fund reveals that there is an erosion in coverage coming from the Affordable Care Act and the rate of uninsured American adults has risen in the past two years. It is most likely due to the Congress’ decision to not cover up for the weaknesses in the law. The other reason could also be that White House has decided to cut advertising geared up towards having more people signing up for government-sponsored insurance plans.
The report takes a note that this trend will continue in the future, due to the tax reform bill of the Republican party lawmakers or GOP lawmakers to be passed in December. The report also mentions that percentage of uninsured Americans between the ages of 19 to 64 years rose from 12.7% in 2016 to 15.5% in 2018.
The rate of uninsured amongst the states that didn’t participate in Medicaid expansion rose from 16.1% to 21.9% over the past two years. The foremost agenda of Republicans when they took charge of the legislative and executive departments of the government was to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Donald Trump had always staunchly criticized this law that Obama had vouched for and Republicans have been unsuccessful in repealing it since the time they won the majority in the mid-term elections in 2010.
But, repealing Obamacare is challenging as there are some benefits of the law that are popular like, young adults are allowed to remain on their parents’ health care policies.
Republicans have struggled to introduce and pass a replacement bill while Democrats have fought hard to preserve it.