The Republicans should calm down and quit their hypocrisy. This week, I found it amusing how the Republican anger over the non-functioning website for the Healthcare Law Obamacare since they themselves have made efforts to repeal the law. Before we continue with these hypocrisies, Republicans should be very careful and look at the history of a very similar law that passed in Massachusetts.
This week, President Obama gave a speech about the Healthcare Law in the famous Faneuil Hall in Boston, the same historical site where Governor Romney, candidate in the 2012 Presidential election, signed a bi-partisan healthcare law for the state of Massachusetts in 2006.
The president detailed the positive results that the Massachusetts law had and what we could learn from it.
For example, during the first month of enrollment, only 123 consumers paying a premium, or 0.3 percent of total enrollment, were registered during this period. By the end of the year, 36,000 had already registered.
In addition, the number of uninsured young people was reduced to about 1 in every 4, from 1 in every 10, in just three years.
Currently, residents of Massachusetts have near universal coverage and the main criticisms against the state law, which we are hearing today about Obamacare from Republicans, never became reality.
It is true that the Obamacare website has had some technological failures, but it is important to note that the benefits of Obamacare go beyond the website. For example:
- It allows around 10.2 million latinos that previously did not have access to health insurance, are now able to acquire it.
- It protects us from being denied simply because we had a preexisting condition.
- In 2014, nearly 6 in 10 people in the United States currently uninsured could be covered for less than $100 per month.
- It was time for Republicans to stop obsessing about eliminating Obamacare, a law that was passed by Congress more than three years ago and was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court.
At the end of the day, it is a great irony that the most ardent of opponents of the Health Care Act are complaining now that people cannot join the system as quickly as possible.
If we have learned anything about our history, we know that like any reform of this magnitude, it is normal that the implementation of Obamacare takes time.
The truth is that millions of people in the United States, including Latinos, are already benefiting from Obamacare and will continue to as more and more people are informed about the benefits that the law provides to our community.
This piece originally appeared in Spanish in the Washington Hispanic
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