Health. CARE. First. AID.

an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.  

words.

"The Obama Administration and its Democratic allies have made the task of promoting the A.C.A. more difficult through their own fecklessness. The law is still better known for the Web-site fiasco than for the benefits it has achieved. Three weeks ago, when President Obama pitched healthcare.gov to young adults on “Between Two Ferns,” Zach Galifianakis said, “Oh, yeah, I heard about that. That’s the thing that doesn’t work.” It was funny, sort of. Support for the A.C.A. remains low in opinion polls, thanks in part to “horror story” campaigns paid for by groups such as Americans for Prosperity. But, in a peculiar way, no politician, of any stripe, has incentives to tell the whole truth. Republicans prefer not to acknowledge any benefits at all. Some Democrats who voted for the law, particularly those up for reëlection, seem unable to acknowledge how much they still support it. It’s easier to focus on the parts that benefit middle-class voters—who tend to turn out at the polls, especially in midterm elections—and to elide the benefits to the poor, which are rarely politically advantageous.

But the core of the law is the guarantee of health care to the people who need it most. As the story of Medicaid illustrates, the hardest thing about programs to aid the poor is getting them started in the first place. Obamacare has now passed that hurdle."

THE NEW YORKER: Health Caring