Question

The Affordable Care Act is continuing to reshape the business landscape as more provisions take effect every year... it has also continued to be a source of controversy.

Comment on how the act may or may not affect you or it has affected you.

Answer 1

The comprehensive health care reform law enacted in March 2010 (sometimes known as ACA, PPACA, or “Obamacare”).

The law has 3 primary goals:

• Make affordable health insurance available to more people. The law provides consumers with subsidies (“premium tax credits”) that lower costs for households with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.
• Expand the Medicaid program to cover all adults with income below 138% of the federal poverty level. (Not all states have expanded their Medicaid programs.)
• Support innovative medical care delivery methods designed to lower the costs of health care generally.

Republicans say the law imposes too many costs on business, with many describing it as a "job killer". However, since the implementation of Obamacare, jobs in the health care sector rose by 9%.They have also decried it as an unwarranted intrusion into the affairs of private businesses and individuals.The party and a veritable industry of conservative think tanks and advocacy groups have fought the law since Mr Obama first proposed it in 2009 at the start of his first term in office.

After the law was passed in 2010, Republicans launched several legal challenges. In 2012 the US Supreme Court declared it constitutional. It also featured in another Supreme Court case in 2016, when employers argued both against the provision that says companies have to provide birth control and the work-around that allowed the federal government to provide birth control to employees who worked at companies who did not want to provide birth control. The court did not issue a ruling, instead ordering both sides to try to find a compromise.

During Mr Obama's presidency, the House of Representatives, controlled by the Republicans, took dozens of symbolic votes to repeal the law and forced a partial government shutdown over the issue. Republicans in state capitals have also sought to undermine it in various ways. But Republicans are on their way to overturning Obamacare after the House passed a revised version of a healthcare bill. The Senate is now considering its own plan, which is hanging in the balance.

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

I do believe that this is part of it.But there is a larger reason that many non-affluent voters vote Republican: they are social conservatives, and embrace the entire Republican public policy program because of their opposition to abortion rights and equal civil rights for LGBTQ people (and in many cases for people of color). They call themselves “values voters.”

I try not to criticize them for this because I too am a values voter. I am an affluent, highly educated, liberal urbanite and I vote Democratic, even though I know there’s a strong likelihood that they will raise my taxes, because they embody my own values: of religious and cultural tolerance, acceptance of sexual and gender minorities, embracing our differences.People vote for complicated reasons. Some of them are more tribal than logical.