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.

Share:
More In Politics
Russia May Be Pivoting Its Strategy in Ukraine
As the war enters its second month, Russia may be changing course on its strategy in Ukraine. After suffering heavy losses, forces around the capital city of Kyiv appear to have stopped offensive operations and are now shifting their focus to taking over the south and east of the country. Terrell Starr, a foreign affairs reporter at The Atlantic Council, breaks down the latest from Kyiv. "Logistically this war has been a disaster. They have far more troops than [the] Ukrainian army has. What they don't have is good planning. The planning has been incredibly poor," he said.
Crypto on the Rise Amid Month of Volatility
Volatility continues to be the name of the game when it comes to crypto. Bitcoin, the most valuable digital token, saw a small jump today - one of several small rallies throughout the month of March. Caitlin Cook, vice president of crypto education company Onramp Academy, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Flood of Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills Have Been Introduced in States This Year
As of March 2022, almost 200 Anti-LGBT+ bills have been introduced in state governments across the country — especially directed at the transgender community. Human Rights Campaign State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel Cathryn Oakley joined Cheddar News to discuss the deluge of legislation. "Unfortunately we are seeing these bills come at transgender youth from every conceivable direction," she said. "Every support that a trans kid has, whether that's their parents, whether that's their family, whether that's their teachers or their guidance counselors or their coaches, whether it's their teammates or the librarians and the books that they read, whether it's curriculum, whether it's even just the ability to acknowledge that LGBTQ people have existed throughout history and are important in the fabric of modern American society. The bills that we are seeing filed across the country are targeting all of those pieces."
How Deepfakes Are Used In The War In Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week seemed to have put out a video that urged Ukrainians to put down their arms and surrender to Russia. It was later revealed that it was a “deepfake,” a computer-generated video to mimic the Ukrainian leader. Cheddar News speaks with security expert Morgan Wright about how the technology is being used in the war in Ukraine.
Load More