Abstract

Five years after enactment of President Obama’s landmark health insurance law, the administration reports that the percentage of uninsured Americans is down, the quality of health care services has improved and health care spending has slowed. In addition, polls show Americans’ attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are changing: Opinions are evenly split, with 43 percent reporting a favorable view and 42 percent an unfavorable view of the law — the narrowest split in about three years. More people feel the law has helped them and fewer feel the law has hurt them, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Furthermore, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a key tenet of the law in June, a victory for the administration. Clouding the ACA’s future, however, is the new Republican-controlled Congress. GOP lawmakers have voted more than 50 times in recent years to repeal or limit the measure because they say it is too expensive and represents government overreach, but had been blocked from moving forward by the Democrat-controlled Senate. Thus, 2015 promises to be a another important year for the longevity of so-called Obamacare.

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