Obamacare works if you want it to

I’m honestly sick and tired of hearing about how much of a “failure” Obamacare is.

I’ve heard my numerous right-winged uncles, grandparents, aunts and parents complaining about it on Thanksgiving. I’ve heard Democrat and Republican peers complain about how “horrendous” the rollout has been.

The conversation goes something like this:

Them: “Obamacare is a failure. The website doesn’t even work.”

Me: “I ... I can’t even respond to that right now.”

Well, now I can. And, truthfully, Obamacare does work, but only if the people in charge want it to work.

Now I don’t mean President Barack Obama or House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi or Sen. Harry Reid. D-Nev. They all want the program to work. I’m talking, rather, about the states.

Truthfully, the states that wanted Obamacare and set up state exchanges, as the law intended, have seen more people enroll than the national average.

In total, 14 states and the District of Columbia all set up their own exchange websites and hotlines as the federal government asked.

Kentucky, in case you were wondering, was the only red state to set up its own exchange. And the state-run exchanges have worked.

As of Nov. 14, 106,185 people had applied for health insurance. Almost 75 percent of these applicants came from states that have their own exchanges.

Now call me crazy, but it seems to be a trend that red states are the ones without exchanges or enrollees.

Why would Republicans possibly want Obamacare not to work out the way it was planned?

While you ponder that question, ponder this one: How successful was Romneycare in its few first months of enrollment?

It wasn’t.

In Massachusetts’ first month of Romneycare, only 123 people signed up for the plan.

In fact, people seemed to have waited longer than anticipated.

Twenty percent of total enrollees in the first year enrolled a month before the mandate went into effect.

From Romneycare’s example we can see that it takes more than two months to get everyone in a system enrolled.

And so far Obamacare is ahead of the precedent in the states that are actually trying.

In a majority of those states, each state has already enrolled more people than Massachusetts did with Romneycare in a similar time frame.

Additionally, more than 400,000 people have signed up for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Now, does this mean that Obamacare is rolling out as quickly as we hoped? No.

In reality, however, could we have expected anything different?

Anytime a major policy is enacted, let alone an overhaul of a country’s health care system, there will be bugs.

So the website had a few kinks. Occasionally, Tumblr shuts down, but I don’t write it off as an absolute failure.

If, in a year or so, only a dismal number of people have signed up for health care, I’ll concede defeat.

For now, Republicans have to remember that they can’t blow a hole in a ship and blame the ship maker. It just doesn’t work that way.

— ajguenth@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Andrew Guenther on Twitter @GuentherAndrew.