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This week has seen the release of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis that refuted claims by opponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that it is a "job killer" and demonstrated that, by giving families more options for obtaining affordable health insurance outside the workplace, the ACA will make it easier for people take a risk and start a business, take time out of the labor force to raise a family, or retire when they are ready.

As CBO made clear, however, its analysis was not a comprehensive analysis of how the ACA will affect the labor market in particular or the economy as a whole. This blog post illustrates six ways that the ACA is helping the labor market, laying the foundation for future economic growth, and improving families' financial security and well-being.

1. Putting more money in families' pockets, boosting demand, and bringing down unemployment today. As of January 1, more than 2 million people had selected a plan in the health insurance marketplace, and nearly 80 percent of those people will - thanks to the ACA - benefit from tax credits to help pay their premiums. All told, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that over the entirety of 2014, 5 million people will benefit from premium tax credits and help with cost-sharing averaging $4,700 per person. In 2015, 11 million people are estimated to benefit, rising to 19 million in 2016. Many millions more will gain affordable health insurance coverage through Medicaid.

These provisions of the ACA make it easier for families to access health care services and to meet other pressing needs, which will increase the demand for goods and services throughout the economy at a time when the unemployment rate is still elevated. For this reason, as CBO Director Doug Elmendorf testified, the ACA "spurs employment and would reduce unemployment over the next few years." The ACA is thus - today - helping ensure that every American who wants a job can find one.

2. Helping slow the growth of health care costs, boosting hiring in the near term, and bolstering workers' paychecks. The United States is currently experiencing a historic slowdown in the growth of health care costs. From 2010 to 2012 real per-capita health spending grew at an average annual rate of just 1.1 percent, and preliminary data and projections imply that this slow growth continued in 2013. The spending growth rates recorded over the last few years are the slowest on record, and less than one-third the long-term historical average of 4.6 percent that stretches back to 1960.

As documented in a report by the Council of Economic Advisers, the ACA is contributing to these trends through reforms to Medicare that reduce excessive payments to medical providers and private insurers and by deploying innovative new payment models that incentivize more efficient, higher-quality care. A growing body of evidence suggests that, in addition to reducing costs and improving quality in Medicare, these ACA reforms may be generating similar benefits system-wide.

Slower growth in health care costs reduces the growth of the health insurance premiums paid by employers, which has important benefits for workers. In the short run, lower health insurance premiums reduce the cost of hiring an additional worker, making it easier for employers to add jobs. co-authored by a leading health economist found that reductions in health care cost growth due to health care reform could increase job growth by 250,000 to 400,000 per year by the second half of this decade.

Economic research shows that, over time, an increasingly large fraction of the premium savings are passed on to workers in the form of higher wages. If only one-third of the recent slowdown in health care cost growth persists, the savings after a decade will amount to $1,200 per person, much of which will show up in worker's paychecks as higher wages.

3. Reducing our long-term deficit and laying the foundation for future growth. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that over fiscal years 2013 through 2022, the ACA will reduce the deficit by $109 billion. The ACA's deficit-reducing effects will grow over time. CBO estimates that over the decade from 2023 through 2032, the ACA will reduce the deficit by an average of 0.5 percent of GDP each year, corresponding to total deficit reduction of nearly $1.6 trillion over that ten-year period. Lower long-term deficits due to the ACA will mean higher national saving, which will increase capital accumulation and reduce foreign borrowing, thereby making workers more productive and increasing national income and living standards over time.

4. Improving health and making workers more productive. The ACA is improving health both for people who would otherwise not have had health insurance and for people who are already insured.

By expanding coverage, the ACA will expand access to needed medical care. Greater access to care as a result of being insured has been shown to reduce mortality, improve mental health, and improve self-reported health status. For Americans who had coverage before the ACA, the ACA guarantees access to preventive services recommended by the United States Preventive Services Task Force without cost-sharing, services that have been proven to improve health and save lives. Since 2010, more than 71 million Americans have received at least one preventive service without cost-sharing.

In addition, the ACA is helping to improve the quality and efficiency of care for all Americans, contributing to better health outcomes while reducing costs. One striking example comes from an ACA initiative that gives hospitals incentives to reduce the number of patients returning to the hospital after discharge, such as by ensuring higher-quality care during the initial hospital stay or making appropriate arrangements for where patients will receive care after discharge. Medicare has also funded community-based organizations that help patients move more smoothly from a hospital stay to care at home. Hospitals have responded to these programs, and, over the last three years, Medicare 30-day hospital readmission rates have turned sharply lower, and are now more than a percentage point below their average level from 2007 to 2011. Through August 2013, this decline corresponded to 130,000 avoided hospital readmissions.
People who live longer, healthier lives will miss fewer days of work, are less likely to become disabled, will tend to spend more years in the workforce, and will be more productive while on the job.
5. Reducing "job lock" and encouraging job mobility and entrepreneurship. Before the ACA, many Americans' only source of secure health insurance coverage was through their jobs. For people with pre-existing medical conditions, purchasing coverage on their own was often unaffordable or even impossible since insurance companies could simply refuse to provide coverage. For others, buying coverage on their own meant living with the fear that their insurer would raise their premiums without warning or even cancel their policy altogether. This could have the effect of locking workers into jobs. As economists at the Heritage Foundation wrote before passage of the ACA: "Individuals who wish to take a better job, change careers, or leave the workforce to raise a family or to retire early take substantial risks...This health insurance obstacle to labor mobility is sometimes called 'job lock.'"

Because of the ACA's ban on discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions and its other strong consumer protections, all Americans now have secure access to health insurance, whether or not they can get coverage through their workplaces.

This guarantee of access to health insurance has a variety of economic benefits. Access to health insurance outside the workplace allows people to structure their careers in ways that make sense for them, like by taking time off to raise a family or by retiring when they want to. It also allows people to take risks that further their careers and benefit the economy as a whole, like going part-time in order to go back to school, leaving a job in order to start a business, or moving to a better job, perhaps at an employer that does not offer coverage. While the empirical evidence on the magnitude of these types of responses is incomplete (and in some cases mixed), there is no doubt that job lock presents an economic challenge. By increasing workers' mobility across jobs, secure access to health insurance helps them to find the job that is best for them-and thus increases overall wages and productivity. Moreover, reducing job lock encourages entrepreneurship, a critical ingredient for growth and job creation.

6. Improving financial security in the face of illness. By expanding access to affordable health insurance coverage, the ACA is helping to ensure that getting sick no longer means financial ruin. Recent research examining an expansion of Medicaid coverage in the State of Oregon confirmed the important role that having insurance plays in ensuring financial security. The study, which used a "gold standard" randomized research design found that gaining access to health insurance coverage through Medicaid "almost completely eliminated" catastrophic medical costs (defined as medical costs in excess of 30 percent of income).

In addition to expanding coverage, the ACA is improving financial security for families who have coverage today. Because of the ACA, all insurance plans sold in the United States must cap enrollees' annual out-of-pocket spending, and insurance companies can no longer sell low-quality policies with annual or lifetime limits on coverage. The ACA is also improving financial security for seniors by phasing out the Medicare Part D "donut hole." Since the enactment of the ACA, these provisions saved 7.3 million Medicare beneficiaries an average of about $1,200 per person on prescription drugs. Overall, better financial protection makes an essential contribution to the well-being of families and thus the overall health of the economy.

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Six Economic Benefits of the Affordable Care Act

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Six ways the ACA is helping the labor market, laying the foundation for future economic growth, and improving families' financial security and well-being.

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As President Barack Obama nears the end of his second term, his hallmark piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, has a precarious future ahead of it.

The overall perception of the law has been and recent . It allows young adults to mixed at best, thanks to a botched website rollout premium increases. But the legislation has also come with some serious benefits stay covered under their parents' insurance plans until age 26, forces insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions, covers preventative health care and ends lifetime limits on essential coverage. Thus far, the law has helped roughly 20 million people gain health coverage.

In order to understand just how transformative the law has been for some Americans, HuffPost Rise spoke with two families that have felt the positive impact of the Affordable Care Act firsthand.

Stacey Lihn's daughter Zoe was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a congenital heart defect that required her to have her first open-heart surgery at just 15 hours old. Before the age of 5, Zoe underwent two more open-heart surgeries, and Lihn started coming to terms with a scary realization.

" When we received Zoe's diagnosis, I had coverage under my employer's' plan, but we had a lifetime cap on our policy," Lihn said. "It's very expensive. Obviously having three open heart surgeries before the age of 5, she was going to hit that lifetime cap and likely at a very young age."

Fighting back tears, Lihn described how she considered giving her parents guardianship of Zoe so the little girl could continue to get health coverage.

"I'm extremely concerned about a complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act" she said. "I fear that [Zoe] ... at 6 years old, is going to have to be confronted with [the question of] 'Why am I not being cared for anymore? Why can't I go to the doctor if I don't feel good?' And not being able to protect her in that way and having her realize her own mortality because of an election is terrifying."

Jeff Jeans was another victim of the United States' complicated health insurance system. In 2011, Jeans' small real estate business went under, so he lost health insurance coverage. Shortly afterward, he found out he had throat cancer. But without insurance, the cost of treatment was going to be a hurdle.

"I think we lost our insurance in January or February and I lost my voice in September [or] October," he said. "You know, you don't think you have cancer. That's the last thing you probably think of, especially when I was only 49 years old."

"The very day my policy kicked in, they gave me radiation. They gave me chemotherapy," he said.

Jeans, who had previously been a staunch conservative and even canvassed for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, wasn't fond of the Affordable Care Act before he received his diagnosis. He's since had a change of heart.

"When we owned our business and they first passed the Affordable Care Act, I told my wife that we would shut the doors of our business and shutter it before I would comply with this law. And that was the law that ended up saving my life," he said.

Despite stories like these, an Obamacare repeal remains a very real possibility. While repealing and replacing the law will be tough, President-elect Donald Trump has stated that he is dedicated to the cause. And with Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, conservatives may finally have the backing to take down the critical law, a decision that could leave people like Jeans and Lihn in limbo.

The video above was produced by Ingela Travers-Hayward, Rebecca Halperin and Katrina Norvell, edited by Sherng-Lee Huang and shot by Johnny Coughlin, Chelsea Moynehan and Mike Ciecierski.

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These Are The Lives That Obamacare Helped Save

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Estimates show that the law has helped at least 20 million Americans get health insurance coverage.

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Remember Obamacare? The fight is far from over on the future of the Obama-era health insurance overhaul. Republicans are making a list-ditch effort this year to turn the program and the money over to the state.

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Editorial by Bloomberg Opinion | Medicare Advantage is great. Except for taxpayers

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Every year, from mid-October to early December, millions of Medicare beneficiaries get the chance to pick a new health plan.

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Paxton Sues Biden Admin to Safeguard Texas’s Medicaid Program

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Attorney General Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) challenging a federal bulletin that threatens the integrity of Texas’s Medicaid program and the nearly five million citizens that it ser…

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Does your dog get better treatment when he's sick than you do? Dr. Sarah Boston thinks so. During a year in which she underwent treatment for thyroid cancer, the Canadian veterinarian couldn't help but compare her experience with those of her own patients. The result is Lucky Dog, a new book that is more than a cancer memoir in that it brings up issues that frustrate many Canadians about our health care system: Long waits for everything from initial diagnosis to treatment, a sense of profound powerlessness, poor communication and a lack of choice.

In fact, Dr. Boston goes one step further in claiming that being a veterinarian helped to save her own life. And maybe she's right. As a surgical oncologist she was no stranger to lumps and bumps. And even though the ones she dealt with were in animals, when she felt a lump in her own neck she knew what had to be done in order for it to be further investigated.

That's when frustration with the human healthcare system kicked in for her. Discovering that she would have to wait weeks for an ultrasound appointment, she grabbed the ultrasound machine her husband (a large animal vet) used on horses and scanned her own neck. What she found was a solid nodule on her thyroid which to her was very suggestive of thyroid cancer. So when she finally got to see her doctor, the tables were turned: "Normally, your doctor tells you that you have cancer, not the other way around," she told me.

What makes Lucky Dog a compelling read is that it's not just another cancer memoir. Neither is it just another critique of the Canadian health care system. The book also details the process (and in her case the lack of progress) that anyone found with a thyroid nodule would go through from initial diagnosis through treatment. Between appointments with various doctors, getting to her first surgery (she had two) took two and a half months.

If you're a fan of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, also a major movie this summer, you'll know a bit about thyroid cancer because it's the cancer that Hazel, the main character, has. It's not a common cancer but 80 per cent of those affected by it are women; in 2014 some 6,000 Canadians will be diagnosed with this cancer of the small butterfly-shaped gland at the front of the neck below the voice box. (For more on the thyroid and this cancer, go to www.thyroidcancercanada.org).

But it all starts with a lump in the neck, the kind that Dr. Boston found on her own. Not everyone with a lump on their neck has thyroid cancer, though. In fact half of us (myself included) have thyroid nodules, 95 per cent of which are benign. But right from the get-go, Dr. Boston, herself an experienced oncologist, was convinced that her lump was not benign. Unfortunately, four physicians told her it was nothing to worry about and only when she pressed further and checked the pathology reports herself did she finally get the right diagnosis. (Often, as was her case, initial biopsy results indicate that either not enough cells were taken in the needle biopsy sample or the cells taken may or may not be cancer -- sort of a grey "we are not sure" area which usually prompts watchful waiting or a re-do of the painful needle biopsy test.)

So stuck for weeks "between the benign and the malignant" while waiting for medical appointments, follow-up tests, and eventually surgery, Dr. Boston put pen to paper and couldn't help but compare her own experience with that of her patients. "The dogs I treat for thyroid carcinoma come in for their appointment in the morning, and have chest x-rays, blood work, and an ultrasound of their neck all done on the same day. Depending on the results, we may do a needle biopsy of their neck mass that day as well, and will get the report back from the pathologist later that afternoon." surgery can be scheduled the next morning, the dogs go home the following day, and preliminary results of the cancer are reviewed within 24 hours.

In her particular cancer, it took five weeks and several different appointments during which she was told she didn't actually have cancer. Though it was recommended that the nodule be removed just to be sure, she further found out that surgery would not be possible without waiting at least another month or more. "And that is why I wish I were a dog. Because I would take better care of me," she writes.

I found my own anger rising when I heard about some of her experiences: Though she made clear she could not tolerate a drug and asked for a substitute, her request was ignored; while seeking holistic treatment at a spa, she found they took a more complete medical history than any hospital had; as her lump grew in size, her doctors seemed rather blase about the lack of diagnosis and the slowness with which appointments proceeded. In being discharged even the nurses were confused as to whether she should stay or go, and she was released without talking to a doctor and with no discharge plan in place other than to follow-up with her own doctor. Unlike her dogs who are home the day after thyroid cancer surgery, Dr. Boston was bed-bound for two weeks.

This is a story about fighting the system and fighting to be heard. In her view, "the Canadian health care system can take a serious health concern and drag things out for long enough that it becomes a life-threatening disease." There are funny thought-provoking bits in this book: Dr. Boston is not shy in talking about the "cancer fatigue" we all feel with a sea of bracelets, tee-shirts, cancer awareness-raising months, and the rainbow of ribbons. Why did thyroid cancer pick teal, she asks? And once diagnosed with a nodule, she found that one is either a real cancer patient or a faker: If your lump was benign, you can't use words like remission, radioactive iodine, or survival time.

Can the human medical system learn anything from the way our canine friends are treated? In the end, Dr. Boston stresses advocacy and taking responsibility for one's own health. "Whether it is a pet, yourself or a family member, try to have someone with a bit of a medical background to advocate for you

10 Facts About Cancer That May Surprise You

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Animals in Canada Get Better Medical Treatment Than Humans

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Though she made clear she could not tolerate a drug and asked for a substitute, her request was ignored; while seeking holistic treatment at a spa, she found they took a more complete medical history than any hospital had; as her lump grew in size, her doctors seemed rather blase about the lack of diagnosis and the slowness with which appointments proceeded.

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PRO (yes)

Pro

Sean Hannity, host of Fox News Channel's Hannity show, stated the following during a Mar. 25, 2010 interview with CNSnews, "Sean Hannity: 'If You Look Up the Dictionary Definition of Socialism, This Is It,'" available at the CNS News website:

"Obama is a socialist. If you take over banks, if you take over car companies, if you take over financial institutions, the way that he has - now the health care system. If you're going to use every crooked deal that you can come up with to get a bill like that passed - most recently the health care bill - that is by definition, if you look up the dictionary definition of socialism, this is it."

Pro

Bill O'Reilly, MA, MPA, Host of The O'Reilly Factor, was quoted as stating the following in a July 23, 2014 article "O'Reilly: The ObamaCare Battle Is 'Capitalism vs. Socialism,'" available at the Fox News Insider website:

"President Obama and the Democratic Party want to put as much money into the hands of the poor and less affluent as they can, and health care subsidies are a great way to do just that... ObamaCare is about much more than providing medical assets to the poor... It's about capitalism vs. socialism."

Pro

Newt Gingrich, PhD, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, stated the following during a May 24, 2010 interview with Tom Schaller titled "Gingrich Slams Paulson, Obama, Sarbanes-Oxley and Even W (a little)," available at the Five Thirty Eight website:

"Obama is committed to socialism. I mean socialism in the broad sense. I'm not talking about a particular platform adopted by the International Socialist Movement in the late 19th century. I'm talking about a government-dominated, bureaucratically-controlled, politician-dictated way of life. Not only have we taken over GM, Chrysler and AIG, but there's a czar in the White House who believes he can establish the pay scale for 30 companies he's never been in, for hundreds of people he's never met. They just nationalized the student loan program. They designed Obamacare so there's a backdoor road to socialized medicine because it creates an incentive for companies to drop their employees. There's evidence that hundreds of companies may drop millions of employees from their health insurance and have them go buy individual insurance. So there are a lot of different practices that would lead us to believe this is a socialist operation."

Pro

Michele Bachmann, JD, LLM, US Representative (R-MN), stated the following during her June 14, 2010 speech at the Luce Policy Institute "2010 Conservative Leadership Seminar," available at the C-SPAN Archives website:

"[S]ocialized medicine, or the government takeover of healthcare, really is the lynchpin of socialism in any nation, that's what the threat of Obamacare is for America, because it completely re-tools the way we do business in this country."

Pro

Louie Gohmert, JD, US Representative (R-TX), was quoted as stating the following in a Mar. 27, 2012 article "Obamacare Is Socialism: Reps. Louie Gohmert, Steve King Attack," available at the Huffington Post website:

"How much more socialist can you get than a government telling everybody what they can do, what they can't do, how they can live...

In order to make Obamacare to work, the IPAB [Independent Payment Advisory Board] must look and say, 'This costs so much, this costs so much. This works over here and will save a lot of people, but this one will save more. So since we're the government and we bought into the socialist notion that the greatest good for the greatest number of people reigns - no longer individual liberty reigns - therefore we've got to let these people die and these people live.'"

Pro

Steve King, US Representative (R-IA), in a Mar. 27, 2012 Huffington Post interview, "Obamacare Is Socialism: Reps. Louie Gohmert, Steve King Attack," available at the Huffington Post website, stated:

"Just think of this: Is it socialism to nationalize a company? Is it socialism to take over banks, insurance companies, car companies? Is that socialism? The socialists say it is... It's control of the means of production... Owning the means of production is Marxism. Controlling the means of production is more in the realm of socialism."

CON (no)

Con

Quentin Young, MD, National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), stated the following in an Aug. 11, 2010 email to ProCon.org:

"No, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is not 'socialized medicine' or a 'government takeover' of U.S. health care. Quite the contrary: the new legislation enhances the central role of private, for-profit corporations in our health system.

In fact, by forcing thousands of businesses and millions of individuals to buy health insurance from private corporations, and by subsidizing the purchase of this (often shoddy and inadequate) coverage, the new law is throwing an economic lifeline to a decidedly market-based model of financing care - one that puts profit maximization above the nation's health.

The new legislation was decisively shaped by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. These firms lavished hundreds of millions of dollars on Congress in the form of lobbying and campaign contributions over the past several years to make sure their profit-making enterprises were protected under any reform."

Con

Martin J. Keenan, JD, practicing attorney, stated the following in his Mar. 23, 2010 article "Health Care Bill Is Not Socialism," available at the Kansas Free Press website:

"[I]n Socialism, the government owns the company providing the goods or services and also controls the company. Nothing in the health care bill is Socialism, as defined by Webster.

In a socialistic medical system, the government would nationalize the entire industry. All hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities would be owned by the government. Also, all the employees (including the doctors) would be government employees...

Obama's health care plan is not Socialism, because Socialism is when the government owns and controls the hospitals and hires the doctors and nurses. Obama's plan keeps our current private sector system, but makes it more accessible."

Con

Milos Forman, Academy Award-winning Director for the films One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, wrote in his July 10, 2012 article "Obama the Socialist? Not Even Close," available at the New York Times website:

"I hear the word 'socialist' being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, 'Obamacare is socialism!' They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism...

Whatever his faults, I don't see much of a socialist in Mr. Obama or, thankfully, signs of that system in this great nation."

Con

Mormons for Obama stated in their Sep. 1, 2012 article "Myth Romney and the Real Truth About Obamacare," available at its website:

"Myth 4: Obamacare is a socialist program. (FALSE)

Reality: Socialism is a system under which the government directly runs a nation's industries. Under this standard, New Deal programs like the Works Progress Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority could, arguably, be considered socialist. After all, they represented instances in which the government directly employed people to build and administer power plants and other public works that generated income. Obamacare, on the other hand, will work through private companies. Rather than directly providing health insurance, either through a national program or through some sort of public option, the government will require that people deal with private insurers. Far from competing with private industry, the health care law will likely give it a lot of new customers."

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Is Obamacare a Socialist Law? - DEBATED - Obamacare - ProCon.org

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Read More... from Is Obamacare a Socialist Law? - DEBATED

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Americans keep winning on health care reform. The public may only hear about a bungling Congress that could not repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) - aka ObamaCare - even though it has been imploding on its own.

Less publicized, the Trump administration continues to implement important, strategic reforms that empower consumers, lower the cost of insurance, and improve access to more affordable medical care. And the administration just delivered again. Secretary Alex Azar's Department of Health and Human Services expanded the availability of short-term, limited duration insurance (STLDI) that is exempt from the coverage requirements and other regulations of the ACA.

STLDI was originally designed to fill a temporary gap in coverage of less than one year when transitioning between plans. President Obama's HHS later finalized a rule in October 2016 that limited STLDI coverage to only three months. This new directive allows STLDI to last for up to 12 months, and it can be renewed for up to 36 months. For those Americans who prefer the choice of more affordable premiums in lieu of many of ObamaCare's coverage mandates that made insurance significantly more expensive, that choice is now available.

The benefits are highly significant for those choosing this coverage. Premiums are estimated to cost about one-third of ObamaCare-compliant insurance, per eHealth data from Q4 2016. That provides a new opportunity for financial protection from catastrophic health expenses for those who were formerly choosing to remain uninsured, because expensive ObamaCare insurance was totally unaffordable.

This also benefits those who simply prefer to save money on premiums, rather than stretch to afford more expensive, more comprehensive insurance. Additionally, consumers who were buying ACA-compliant insurance just to escape the tax penalty that punishes people who would have bought non-ACA-compliant plans may also now opt for cheaper STLDI, given that the Trump administration reduced that penalty to $0 as of January 1, 2019. Beyond cheaper premiums, broader access to doctors and hospitals could also be available under STLDI compared to ACA-compliant plans that have very narrow provider networks.

Despite the failure of the Republicans in Congress to completely repeal the ACA, this administration has repeatedly made significant inroads toward providing more affordable health coverage and care to more Americans.

This administration understands that the factors by which the ACA contributed to rising premiums must be eliminated, and broader access to STLDI is an excellent step. STLDI coverage is cheaper because it is tailored coverage that circumvents the ACA's excess mandated coverage and its harmful regulations. That includes the ACA's required " essential benefits " that increased premiums by 10 percent; the ACA's 3:1 age rating that raised premiums for younger enrollees by 19 percent to 35 percent; the "guaranteed issue" that gave people incentives to remain uninsured until they were sick, a grossly misguided rule that raised premiums for everyone regardless of age or city by 46 percent; and hopefully many of the costly and often unwanted state coverage mandates now totaling over 2,270 for everything from acupuncture to marriage counseling to massage therapy.

But these new rules on limited mandate plans could be improved. For instance, these plans should be allowed for longer periods of time; they should be available to everyone, regardless of age or employment; and even more boldly, they should be included in Medicare and Medicaid as alternative, cheaper coverage coupled with an option for a defined benefit instead of traditional coverage. Why would anyone be against offering such choices to Americans and instead force them to buy coverage they don't want or value for their hard-earned money?

To appreciate the potential impact of health reforms like this, we must also sort out fact from false political grandstanding about our current state of affairs under ObamaCare.

Contrary to the claims of those wedded to ObamaCare, the data shows that its regulations caused massive increases in insurance premiums and a disappearance of insurance options across the country. In its first four years, ObamaCare insurance premiums for individuals doubled while for families they increased by 140 percent. Shockingly, this occurred even though insurance deductibles for individuals increased by over 30 percent for individuals and by over 97 percent for families, according to eHealth data.

As time passes, insurance options and prices on ObamaCare Exchanges continue to worsen, according to HHS data. For 2018, only one Exchange insurer offered coverage in each of approximately one-half of U.S. counties; many more counties had a choice of only two companies in their Exchanges. Moreover, many Exchange enrollees continue to face large year-on-year premium increases in 2018, according to Kaiser Foundation analysis, even in the face of markedly higher deductibles. And the spectrum of doctors and specialists accepting that insurance continues to sharply narrow, with far fewer specialists than non-ACA Exchanges. Almost 75 percent of plans are now highly restrictive.

Despite the failure of the Republicans in Congress to completely repeal the ACA, this administration has repeatedly made significant inroads toward providing more affordable health coverage and care to more Americans. New association health plans for small businesses and other groups, expanded health savings accounts, and broader access to limited mandate insurance coverage through STLDI are all important steps toward more affordable health care.

Although such arcane rule changes likely cause eye-rolling and yawns among many, these important steps remove harmful regulations from the previous administration that hurt consumers. While Americans are likely not yet "tired of winning," expanding limited mandate insurance is a clear victory for consumers.

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Americans are 'winning' on health care as Trump administration chips away at ObamaCare

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For those Americans who prefer the choice of more affordable premiums in lieu of many of ObamaCare's coverage mandates that made insurance significantly more expensive, that choice is now available.

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“Obamacare” just a PC term for “communism”

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An engineer explains “Obamacare” in four sentences.