Mar
31
Blog Post Class 18 – Health Care // Sheena Chin
March 31, 2015 | Leave a Comment
To be honest, I have never really studied or researched about health care before tonight. My family is covered by Medicaid, which I believe is subsidized under Obamacare. I do not to this day, know what is covered and what isn’t except the fact that my pre-teen braces costs were covered entirely, I can get free vaccinations, and free vision screenings whenever I want. Apart from my own experiences with health care, it was interesting to read how Obamacare has statistically affected Americans nationwide.
In the first article about Obamacare that was covered by the Times, it displayed statistics on who exactly are the primary benefactors of Obamacare, thanks to big data. The biggest winners from Obamacare include people page 18-24, Blacks, Hispanics, and people from rural areas. From these statistics, it seems as if Obamacare has “pushed back against inequality, essentially redistributing income in the form of health insurance of insurance subsidaries” to the very same people who have fared worse in the decades before. Another interesting fact to point out from this article is how statistics from big data also show women being awarded more heavily than men, even though wages for women have been rising in past years. Undoubtedly however, women still make 77 cents to every 1 dollar a man makes.
From this article, I think that while there is still a lot of hesitance towards Obamacare, it seems as if Obamacare is actually achieving its goal of providing affordable health care to many Americans who can not afford it otherwise. One of the greatest things that came from Obamacare was allowing poorer Americans to afford basic universal health coverage without having to pay any premiums, as often their jobs do not offer health care coverage. One of the most interesting things to read about in that article was how Obamacare affected states that favored Republicans differently from states that favored Democrats. In its explanation, the article reports how democratic states are already provided with widespread coverage with little room for improvement, while rural states that lean towards Republicans gained the most out of Obamacare.
In the second New York Times article that transcribed real life people’s opinions about Obamacare and how Obamacare has affected their lifestyles, I thought it was overall a good read considering the writers included opinions from both ends. In the first account, Lyla is a low income resident who hails from St. Louis who makes about roughly 19K in a year. Before 2010 when Obamacare was implemented, she struggled with paying for health care since her job did not provide it. At the ripe age or 50, she was forced to shell out $250 a month for health care and its premiums. After Obamacare, she only had to pay $32 a month, which she claims to be extremely affordable. At the other end of the spectrum, the Segina family had thoughts very different from Lyla’s. For them, sure Obamacare allowed them to pay for cheaper healthcare considering they are a family of five, but it was still too expensive considering both Mr. and Mrs. Segina had fairly low income jobs. For them, Obamacare was not affordable considering their large sized family, which points to flaws in the system. The difference from Lyla’s case to the Segina family is the difference in household size. If these two households were applied the same rates of insurance subsidies, it seems unfair for larger sized households to carry a heavier burden when there are only two people at paid jobs.
Overall, I still believe that Obamacare is a very effective implementation of health care policies by President Obama, besides the fact that my political views could bias my opinion. I recognize that there could be many critics out there who point out the flaws in the system, but overall, I do believe that Obamacare did what it was intended to do — provide a means to pay for affordable health insurance without the added costs of premiums for all Americans nationwide. While, the system still has room for improvement, I still believe it’s an awesome policy.
