For years, President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the Affordable Care Act is on the verge of collapse. As he puts it last week, the health care law is “exploding.”

Is Obamacare really about to fall apart? The short answer is no -- there are areas of the country where the ACA’s markets are working well. In others, though, it’s struggling. Meanwhile, the Trump administration holds many of the levers that will determine whether the Affordable Care Act lives or dies.

Obamacare, as the ACA is often called, has helped 20 million people get insurance, mainly by expanding the Medicaid health program for the poor and by creating markets for individual insurance where many can buy plans. Medicaid is relatively immune to collapse, since it’s funded almost entirely by state and federal governments, though some lawmakers would like to limit its spending.

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