How Obamacare Is Doing Better But Feeling Worse

“The Affordable Care Act is like a patient who is feeling worse when key clinical indicators say he is doing better.
Obamacare recovered from its Web site fiasco last October and went on to exceed enrollment projections in March. Despite predictions of “rate shock,” early indications are that premiums in the new insurance marketplaces are increasing modestly in most states that have made 2015 information public and more slowly than the non-group market has grown in the past. While critics said that the Affordable Care Act was having no impact on the uninsured, the share of the population that is uninsured is down significantly. Adding to the more upbeat news, health costs are rising at historically moderate rates, although the ACA has played only a supporting role in that so far. Still, opinion about the ACA has not moved significantly in any direction since 2010, when the law passed, and remains decidedly more negative than positive.
The best explanation can be seen in the chart below, which shows partisan views of the Affordable Care Act since 2010: Republicans have intensely disliked the health-care law from the start; Democrats have favored it; and independents are in the middle.”