House Republicans just voted—for the 56th time—to repeal Obamacare, 239-186. That's something they have to do at least once a Congress now, since every new Republican that comes in has to have his or her chance to make a completely symbolic and useless vote.
It's particularly ironic that, as
diarist mumtaznepal points out, this repeal came right now, during a measles outbreak that has spread to more than
100 people in more than a dozen states.
It's ironic because one of the things these Republicans just voted to repeal is free immunizations to everyone with private health insurance. That's right, among all the great things this law has done is to provide preventive care—that includes immunizations—to everyone covered with public or private insurance. Here's just one of the reasons that matters: Before Obamacare, lack of access to immunizations was a major factor in parents not getting their children jabbed, according to a 2013 study from the Centers for Disease Control:
The study found that an astonishing 49 percent of toddlers born from 2004 through 2008 hadn't had all their shots by their second birthday, but only about 2 percent had parents who refused to have them vaccinated. They were missing shots for pretty mundane reasons—parents' work schedules, transportation problems, insurance hiccups. An earlier CDC study concluded that children in poor communities were more likely to miss their shots than those in wealthier neighborhoods, and while that may not be too surprising, it's still a dangerous pattern. "If you're going to delay one or two vaccines, it's not going to make a huge difference," says the new study's lead author, Jason Glanz, an epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Institute for Health Research. "But you could also think of it like this: If a million kids delay their vaccines by a month, that's time during which a disease could spread."
Obamacare can't eliminate irrationality in the parents who refuse to provide vaccinations to their children out of misguided selfishness, but it can and has helped all those other parents who want to do the right thing. But that's not something Republicans have ever been or ever will be concerned about.