The Washington Monthly - Ten Miles Square - The Quiet Triumph of Obama Care:
We understand why President Obama trumpeted the killing of Osama bin Laden while barely mentioning health reform, his most significant domestic accomplishment in his State of the Union address last week. Ten years after 9/11, the killing of Bin Laden was an indisputable triumph for President Obama, welcomed by almost every American. In contrast, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), enacted with only Democratic votes by the scarcest of margins in 2010, remains a complex, highly controversial piece of legislation with outcomes and costs that remain to be seen in the years ahead.
Yet surprising even to many advocates of health care reform, evidence is emerging that the ACA is already improving life for millions of average Americans. It is promoting long-overdue fundamental changes in our dysfunctional medical system. Moreover, because those reforms are starting to directly address heightened economic insecurities of average families - the personal financial conditions that will largely determine this year’s election outcomes - President Obama would be wise to more forcefully and more specifically explain how his health care bill is already helping millions of vulnerable families and the country as a whole. Sure, financially-pressured families will celebrate the derring-do of Seal Team Six. They should directly appreciate the immediate impact of improved insurance coverage and reduced medical costs.
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