Obamacare's very good week

Daily Kos Staff

Friday June 13, 2014 · 1:10 PM PDT

2014/06/13 · 13:10

President Barack Obama smiling and holding

Man, what a week for Obamacare. A very, very good week. Steve Benen has the list, but since we've covered great enrollment news, good polling, and fantastically low growth in Medicare, here are a few of the things that got even better this week.

We knew that New Hampshire and some other states are going to get new insurers in their exchanges next year. Now we know that's true in every state that's reported so far. Here's what it looks like.

Chart showing surge of insurers joining exchanges in several states.

More insurers means, as Kaiser Family Foundation President Larry Levitt says, potentially lower premiums and thus lower costs overall—less the government is paying in subsidies, more consumer choice, and "marketing muscle" from big insurers that will help boost enrollments. More insurers being willing to enter the market helps prove another point which was reinforced this week—these are paying customers. If there was a huge problem with people paying their premiums, insurers would be staying away.

But there's not a problem with people paying up, the last in our roundup of very good Obamacare news. Charles Gaba (aka brainwrap) has stayed on top of the numbers, and is "quite confident that at least 90% of the original 8.02 million exchange QHP enrollees have paid their first premiums."

Meanwhile, the Republican floundering doesn't just continue, it gets worse with the defeat of Eric Cantor and the victory by a "repeal and nothing but repeal" tea partier.

Yes, it was a very good week for Obamacare.

Obamacare's very good week

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