Obamacare is far from perfect. Many of us have long sought a single payer system, but that was not doable in 2010. Perhaps a public option was, and it is unfortunate that we did not achieve that. It is one of the reforms to Obamacare that progressives should fight for.
My post today is about some good news. A study from the Brookings Institution shows that Obamacare will help reduce income inequality. Of course, much more is needed, but it all adds up. This is a step forward. (Raising the minimum wage also is very important because it will cause a bump in wages at minimum wage and wages above it (and it likely will have to be done state-by-state).)
Here's the study on Obamacare and inequality:
THE ARCHITECTS OF THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT (ACA) sought to expand health insurance coverage, slow the growth of health care spending, and improve the quality of care. Changing the distribution of incomes was not a stated objective. Nonetheless, the ACA may do more to change the income distribution than any other recently enacted law. It does so by requiring employers to offer affordable health insurance to their full-time employees, by providing refundable tax credits to help make private health insurance affordable, and by expanding eligibility for Medicaid. The law penalizes nonpoor adults who are offered affordable coverage and do not buy it. It reduces subsidies for some Medicare plans and imposes new taxes on the labor and investment incomes of high-income families. In each of these ways, the new health law will change the net incomes of Americans at all income levels.
Brookings Institution: POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT ON INCOME INEQUALITY
You can read the entire study at that link. Here is a synopsis from TPM:
Obamacare is poised to mitigate soaring inequality by raising the incomes of the poorest Americans, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution.
By 2016, when its core provisions will have fully taken effect, the law will lift the average incomes of the bottom one-fifth of earners by nearly 6 percent, and the incomes of the bottom one-tenth by more than 7 percent, the study found.
The "great majority" of beneficiaries of the law's subsidies and Medicaid expansion will be in the bottom half -- and the "overwhelmingly majority" in the bottom third -- of the income distribution.
Obamacare is worth defending.