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.
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Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif. - 3rd District) believes the former captain of the Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier, USS Theodore Roosevelt, deserves to be reinstated after being removed for going around the chain of command to ask for help for his virus-plagued vessel.
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The sailor was found unresponsive on April 9 and moved to ICU at a hospital. He died Monday. The Roosevelt has been in a coronavirus crisis that prompted the acting Navy secretary to fire the ship's captain on April 2.
White House officials are pointing to hopeful signs that the spread of the coronavirus could be slowing. President Donald Trump insisted he would not move to reopen the country until it is safe.
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