Over the past several years, several major surveys have all been delivering the same conclusion: The number of uninsured Americans is falling. One congressman, though, doesn’t believe it.
In an interview with the Trussville Tribune earlier this week, freshman Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) declared that, on net, no additional people have gained insurance since the passage of Obamacare. “I’m not sure that’s true that more people are covered,” Palmer declared after the host noted that more people have health care today than in 2010. “There’s just about as many people uninsured now as there were before the Affordable Care Act.”
Watch the relevant portion beginning at 16:55:
In 2010, there were 49.9 million people in America who lacked health insurance, leaving them vulnerable to bankruptcy and premature death. One of the primary goals of the Affordable Care Act was to help many of those people get coverage by making insurance more accessible.
On that front, analysts agree that the law has been a remarkable success. When Obamacare’s insurance exchanges were first implemented in late 2013, the uninsured rate stood at 18 percent. According to Gallup, that rate has fallen every quarter since then, and currently clocks in one-third lower at 11.9 percent:
Of course, many conservatives are loathe to credit such a success to the health care reform law. That Obamacare wouldn’t result in more people having health insurance was, as New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait has rounded up, a claim repeated by many conservatives in 2013 and 2014. That argument has largely gone by the wayside as the uninsured rate continues to drop, but apparently Palmer isn’t yet ready to give it up.
Palmer didn’t just reveal himself as an Obamacare truther. Discussing climate change during the interview, the Alabama GOPer also erroneously declared that temperatures hadn’t increased in the last two decades and may even be decreasing.
Original Article
Source: thinkprogress.org/
Author: SCOTT KEYES
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