{"id":1209,"date":"2013-08-23T13:23:06","date_gmt":"2013-08-23T18:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/?p=1209"},"modified":"2013-08-23T13:23:06","modified_gmt":"2013-08-23T18:23:06","slug":"obamacare-helping-folks-in-spite-of-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/obamacare-helping-folks-in-spite-of-themselves\/","title":{"rendered":"Obamacare Helping Folks in Spite of Themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heart-warming? \u00a0Tragic? \u00a0Amusing? \u00a0Aggravating? \u00a0I guess in the end, the point is that people are getting the health care they need. \u00a0Whether they understand and appreciate where it’s coming from is a secondary matter. \u00a0But you have to wonder how we can possibly expect to get reasonable political (or any!) judgments when people are this ill-informed.<\/p>\n

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These three paragraphs say everything about Obamacare<\/a><\/h2>\n

By Sarah Kliff, Updated: August 23, 2013<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Huffington Post\u2019s Jason Cherkis spent two days<\/a> at the Kentucky State Fair with workers from Kynect, the state\u2019s health marketplace. He came back with a better understanding of deep-fried Kool Aid (\u201cfunnel cake dough flavored with the powdered drink mix\u201d) and this fantastic anecdote.<\/p>\n

A middle-aged man in a red golf shirt shuffles up to a small folding table with gold trim, in a booth adorned with a flotilla of helium balloons, where government workers at the Kentucky State Fair are hawking the virtues of Kynect, the state\u2019s health benefit exchange established by Obamacare.<\/p>\n

The man is impressed. \u201cThis beats Obamacare I hope,\u201d he mutters to one of the workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I burst his bubble?\u201d wonders Reina Diaz-Dempsey, overseeing the operation. She doesn\u2019t. If he signs up, it\u2019s a win-win, whether he knows he\u2019s been ensnared by Obamacare or not.<\/p>\n

This speaks to a point that others, particularly Jonathan Bernstein<\/a>, have already made: When Americans actually interact with Obamacare, it won\u2019t be called Obamacare at all. In Kentucky, for example, it will be Kynect, the state health marketplace. In Idaho, local residents will purchase coverage from Your Health Idaho. Covered Oregon will serve (surprise!) Oregonians, while neighboring Washingtonians will purchase coverage from WAHealthPlanFinder. If you watch the ads that states have produced to support their marketplaces, they rarely mention the federal law that has set these changes in action.<\/p>\n

This means it\u2019s entirely possible that, even as people start signing up for Obamacare, the program won\u2019t get much more popular at all, something Democrats have roundly expected. \u201cIf the ACA works as its sponsors hope, quite a lot of people \u2014 maybe the majority \u2014 who get their insurance from the exchanges will tell you that, no, they have private insurance,\u201d Bernstein wrote recently in the American Prospect. \u201dThey aren\u2019t getting anything from Obamacare.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n