Most of the opinion pieces about ObamaCare these days fall into the what-a-disaster category. But business writer Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times says a careful look at the actual numbers involved reveal the criticism to be uninformed "hype." In reality, "the number of victims is much smaller than you're being led to think and is swamped by the ranks of beneficiaries," he writes. Start with the rough estimate that the potential market for individual policies, the main focus of the Affordable Care Act, is 30 million people.
Of that group, more than two-thirds are uninsured, and "for virtually all of them, ObamaCare is an unalloyed blessing," writes Hiltzik. Of the remainder, the vast majority will be eligible for federal subsidies, leaving at most 2.4 million paying the full amount. Even if all of them ended up paying more for less coverage, "they account for less than 1% of the country." But Hiltzik further estimates that most of these people will be getting better deals, despite the horror stories to the contrary. Bottom line, "we're down to about one-quarter of one-percent of the country being paraded around to set the agenda for everyone else." Yes, ObamaCare needs improvements, but the what-a-disaster coverage is way overblown, argues Hiltzik. Click for his full column. (More ObamaCare stories.)
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