Most of the news about health reform since then has been good, defying the dire predictions of right-wing doomsayers. Health reform didn’t cause the budget deficit to soar; it didn’t kill private-sector jobs, which have actually grown more rapidly since Obamacare went into effect than at any time since the 1990s. Well, Obamacare is a system that relies on private insurance companies to provide much of its expanded coverage (not all, because expanded Medicaid is also a big part of the system). That’s an important story, but not central to the broader issue of health reform. The idea of allowing the government to offer a health plan directly to families was blocked in 2010 because private insurers didn’t want to face the competition.

Source: New York Times August 19, 2016 07:18 UTC