As Washington debates whether the country should repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, applicants are rushing to get covered, reportedly driving applications to a record high.
“I’m glad that the people understand the importance of getting coverage,” Donna Christensen, the former delegate for the U.S. Virgin Islands’ at-large district, told Cheddar on Wednesday.
But many still remain uninsured. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 28.2 million people under the age of 65 did not have coverage in 2016.
For context, that's a smaller proportion than before Obamacare passed. The federal agency said that the percentage of people uninsured now stands at 9 percent, compared to 16 percent in 2010.
Many uninsured and current beneficiaries of the Act worry that a repeal would be in place by 2019 and that time is running out. However, Christensen argues that this is not the case. She says it’s going to be very hard for Congress to repeal ACA.
“The Affordable Care Act is still the law of the land,” the ex-congresswoman said, stating that she doubts a repeal would ever happen.
“It was not easy to get the law passed, but it’s going to be more difficult to take it away,” Christensen said.
She encouraged the uninsured to seek coverage by December 15th this year, pointing out that benefits will be valid into the next year.
Congressional Budget Office director Keith Hall put out a blog post on the federal agency’s website on Wednesday. He says that according to the CBO’s most recent baseline, repealing Obamacare's individual mandate would reduce the nation’s federal budget deficit by $338 billion within the next decade. That's less than the previous estimate of $416 billion, made last December.
He wasn't hurt and later joked that he "got sandbagged."
Canada will soon become the first country in the world where warning labels must appear on individual cigarettes.
Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that federal agencies are taking new steps to stop racial discrimination in appraising home values by proposing a rule intended to ensure that the automated formulas used to price housing are fair.
Centrist Democrats and Republicans pushed it to approval over blowback from conservatives and some progressives. The Senate is expected to act quickly by the end of the week.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that two state laws banning abortion are unconstitutional, but the procedure remains illegal in the state in nearly all cases except life-threatening situations.
A New York City police officer is speaking out against the use of “courtesy cards” by friends and relatives of his colleagues on the force, accusing department leaders of maintaining a sprawling system of impunity that lets people with a connection to law enforcement avoid traffic tickets.
A Pennsylvania restaurant owner who screamed death threats directed at then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi while storming the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Tuesday to more than two years in prison.
Hard-fought to the end, the debt ceiling and budget cuts package is heading toward a crucial U.S. House vote as President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy assemble a coalition of centrist Democrats and Republicans to push it to passage over fierce blowback from conservatives and some progressive dissent.
The Republican speaker urged GOP skeptics Tuesday to look at “the victories” in the package he negotiated with President Joe Biden.
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has dementia, her family announced Tuesday.
