Clinton Can Put Health-Care Reform Back on Track

Clinton Can Put Health-Care Reform Back on Track

You’ve heard of a beautiful failure. What about an ugly success? That may be the best way to describe the Affordable Care Act. It has covered millions of Americans—just this year, 250,000 Louisianans signed up for Medicaid in the six weeks after the state expanded the program under the law. And the ACA has widened health coverage without spiking costs; indeed, expenditures are way below initial expectations.

But even if we could forget its shambolic launch, the ACA has hit some increasingly serious obstacles. Enrollment in the new marketplaces created by the law (aka “exchanges”) is below expectations, and the number of plans competing in them is falling, particularly outside dense urban areas. Premiums are set to rise sharply, and these increases could further destabilize the most troubled exchanges by driving away current or potential enrollees, especially the young and healthy.

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