As the incoming president and Congress call for a radical change of course in health care policy, a new study from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) shows families are having less trouble affording health services than in previous years.
According to the survey, which stretches from 2011 to June 2016, the percentage of people under 65 living in families and struggling to pay medical fees has dropped from 21.3 percent (56.6 million) to 16.2 percent (43.8 million).
The dramatic decrease can be attributed to the Affordable Care Act and a much-improved economy. The number of uninsured Americans has fallen from 46.3 million in 2011 to 28.4 million this past June. In the same period, unemployment has gone from 9.1 percent to 4.9 percent.
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The report's findings may seem inconsistent with the well-publicized hikes in insurance premiums over the past couple years. However, often coverage is the paramount factor in determining health care affordability.
Lynn Quincy, director of the Healthcare Value Hub at the Consumers Union, explains to NPR: "People speak loudest when they are faced with increasing deductibles and increase cost sharing, but nothing determines the affordability of care than that binary equation: Do you have coverage or do you not?"
The apparent positive effects of the ACA only raise more questions regarding President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican leaders' vow to destroy the law.
The most influential voice in the fight to dismantle Obama Care will likely be Tom Price, the six-term Republican congressman from Georgia who Trump picked to lead the Department of Health for Human Services.
Price has experience in the area; he's been trying to thwart the ACA since Democrats start working on it in 2009. In 2014, Price proposed the Empowering Patients First Act, which would replace the ACA with an age-adjusted fixed tax credit to be used on private insurance. The tax credit increases with age but does not change based on the patient's income.
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