Happy birthday, "Obamacare"!

Yes, indeed. A very happy fourth birthday to the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare."  Anyone who knows me knows I'd be all about this.

And congratulations to us--to America and Americans. The proof is in the pudding, in the results, as we know. This from The New York Times today:

The Health Care Law's Checkup

Early indications are the Affordable Care Act is working. With less than two weeks remaining before the March 31 deadline for coverage this year, five million people have already signed up. After decades of rising percentages of Americans lacking health insurance, the uninsured rate has dropped to its lowest levels since 2008.

Meanwhile, health care costs have slowed dramatically. The new law may well be contributing to this slowdown by reducing Medicare overpayments to medical providers and private insurers, and creating incentives for hospitals and doctors to improve quality of care.

And don't think for a minute I or anyone realistic about this thinks it's perfect. Far from it. The Act helps and is a repair, a lifeline, for millions of Americans but it needs help. It does need some fixing and the article goes on to point that out. 

More good news on the Act:

The Affordable Care Act Is Working

A Plain and Simple Success

The Beginning of a Health Care Revolution

And this article, here, above, lest anyone think it's merely written by some "Leftie" from the Democratic Party or some such, is actually written by someone with a vested interest in it all since he's a doctor himself:

Ezekiel J. Emanuel is an oncologist, contributing New York Times opinion writer and the author of “Reinventing American Health Care.” His co-author is Andrew Steinmetz.

And finally this, from an executive in the health care industry. Hey, I don't care if it is, after all, possibly only a "puff piece" and/or possibly a public relations piece only for her and her industry. The fact is, Americans have the most expensive health care system in the world, literally, bar none and the health results we get from it are worst of all the industrialized nations:

We Must Keep Coverage Affordable

Is our health care system fixed?

Absolutely not. Far, far from it.

There are still far too many Americans priced out of health care. There are still, also, far too many people, companies and corporations using health care and health care insurance against their own employees, tragically and shamefully enought.

But this helped. The Affordable care Act, "Obamacare", helped and is helping. People now have coverage that didn't before. Costs of health care in the country have slowed in their increases and there are other benefits. But at least we got this. More of have insurance, have coverage. We've made a start. A good start.

Now we need to do more.