Whether there’s a government shutdown or not today, there’s still going to be a kick-off to the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges this week because that part of the act is already funded and not subject to a political stunt like a temporary closure of the government.
In other words, Oct. 1 is still an important date, especially if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who are uninsured. Today, you can begin going to the public exchanges in your region and see what kind of plans private for-profit insurance companies can offer you.
Now does that sound like socialized medicine to you?
The Affordable Care Act is also known as “Obamacare” by folks like those birthers who are still upset about the president’s birth certificate. One thing they do know, however, is that Obama is the father of fair and inclusive health care for Americans, and they dislike that almost as much as the fact that the president was actually born in the U.S.
The Affordable Care Act allows you to begin choosing a bonafide health plan within your budget that will protect you once coverage goes into effect in Jan. 2014. If you don’t have insurance, it will seem like a godsend. And there are no penalties nor denials due to any pre-existing conditions. Those are perhaps the biggest positives that often get lost in the political rhetoric.
Then again, maybe there are really 17 million positive reasons for the ACA — that’s the number of kids who have asthma and diabetes who can no longer be denied health care.
The actual numbers of people who will be able to get coverage is staggering just in my state, California. According to the Asian Americans Advancing Justice, six million Californians of all kinds are uninsured, and of those, about 600,000 are Asian-Americans who could benefit once the Affordable Care Act begins.
