Is Obamacare Working? The Affordable Care Act Five Years Later 

Is it wrong to say I couldn't care less about the 'freedom' of massive companies when people are being fucked over financially or left with shitty care? We need a government run, single payer, universal healthcare in the U.S.

We don't need more tanks....just saying

Why aren't you and your brother running for president/vicepresident??? I could trust the US in your hands.

Nothing was mentioned about "forcing" a person to have health care even if they can't afford it. Then getting a "penalty" assessed if you don't have it. I am convinced that is why people signed up, JUST TO AVOID THE FINE! I am battling the IRS now about this and the govt subsidies. IRS also claims that I didn't have insurance. I have sent proof 3 times, each time they have "lost" the paperwork. This who thing, for me has been one big cluster. I had insurance through my employer for 142.50 a week. Yes a bit steep but doable. After Obamacare kicked in, 247.00 A WEEK!!! Seriously, that's what Obama considers Affordable. Now, I have Obamacare through a state exchange it costs me an my wife $173.00 a month but I have a $13K deductible!! Again, how is that Affordable!!!??????

I'm British and, dispite its faults, I think the National Health Service is one of the best things about my country...

Thank you for doing this series of videos. Factual and without the screeching of axes being ground.

Government is the problem, not the free market. The reason prices and premiums are so high is because we don't care how much an ambulance ride costs. It's $6000 in Minnesota by the way just to go across the street.

Once the Care act passed, my employer had to switch us to a cheaper quality insurance and our deductible shot up…

ACA is dumping the cost of healthcare on the middle class, who are forced to pay for it while not being able to afford it due to making too much for healthcare credits.

No, it has not worked. I owe $365 this year out of my Tax Returns for not having health insurance, and I don't have health insurance because I only work part-time with inconsistent hours and every healthcare plan in my state is too expensive. All it's done for me, as well as my parents back in South Carolina who are struggling to get by, is fuck us over. All the ACA has done is strong-arm some people who didn't want healthcare to get it, and punish those who can't afford healthcare.

Update...big insurance company's are leaving Obama care. And if you have it don't go to the hospital or docs office.

HAHAHAHA if you get shot we will try to patch that up for you universal health care. that one cracked me up.

>hey let's force Americans to buy health insurance

I really don't understand why Americans don't want universal healthcare. It would make medical costs far cheaper per person with only a small tax hike. Although because you now don't need to pay for insurance, the tax is basically negligible. There's basically no downside except that it's "socialism", which America hates. I'd call it basic human rights, but whatever.

you also forgot politicians do not use it themselves

You know, before the ACA, I couldn't have insurance because it's apparently a big deal to be missing internal organs and thus having a compromised immune system. Now, if I get sick, I can actually go to a doctor that I need to go to because, surprisingly, having a compromised immune system means I should probably see a doctor if I'm sick.

A single payer healthcare system would be better.

I pay 4 times as much for 1/4 of the care I used to get.

So, does this count as educational?

Socialist propaganda! /sarcasm

Q: Is Obamacare Working? A: NO.

The first Vlogbrothers video I ever saw was the one where John compared the US healthcare system to a giant pig at the state fair. One of the best takedowns of our healthcare system I've ever seen. Been a fan ever since.

...but what does Hank think about Obamacare? Since I'm pretty sure he was directly affected by it because of his ulcerative colitis.

This law put me in debt. I hate debt. I do not even have a credit card.

I can't afford the AFFORDABLE CARE ACT. It's too expensive.

*Lives in Britain* *Has NHS* *Laughs*

My family can't afford healthcare because of the so called 'affordable care act', so I haven't had health care for several years now.

"Have you ever met an actual British person?" I am an actual British person!

yes but countries like France , the Uk and so on don't pay their doctors 350k $ / year

Things are better than before? No. Not at all. Everyone I know at median US income is paying more than they were and getting less coverage. I love when people only look at adjusted and selected numbers, and ignore the experience of everyone around around them.

It's important to look back on whether this law is working or not. And you have done a very fair analysis. However, here's a case for why this law is disastrous and will surely have to change by 2017, or there will be a citizen's revolt. 1. At 4:10 you say that premiums are rising slower than they have historically. Check it again during the 2016 open enrollment (8 months after you made this video). Premiums are going up again - as much as 35% higher. Many families are now paying more for their health insurance than for their rent or mortgage (hence the impending citizen's revolt). This is untenable. Anyone who says this program is working is obviously getting their insurance through an employer, or getting a full subsidy. People who have to pay the premiums out of their pocket would disagree that it's working. 2. You mention the key point - not only is the health insurance becoming unaffordable, it's terrible coverage - with deductibles going up higher and higher, copays increasing, and insurance companies denying more and more high dollar claims. Now their new trick is to make it harder to get through their phone system, so a smaller percentage of people will have the time and patience to fight for their claim. 3. 4:16 you say more insurance companies are participating. The months following this video saw some really bad news for that argument. In June 2015, Assurant Health pulled out completely of the health insurance business - they were losing billions. In October United Health Group announced that they lost $7B on Obamacare policies and that 2016 will be their last year participating in the Affordable Care Act. 4. Here is the real failure. At 6:20 you say the most important thing. The ACA was supposed to get sick people (and poor people) insured without disturbing the ecosystem for the rest of the population that already had insurance before the law. This is the real failure. While millions of pre-existing sick people now have insurance (mission accomplished) now millions of middle class families who make too much to receive subsidies - either cannot afford insurance any longer, or have seem their premiums double and in some cases triple. 5. This was supposed to be a job creator. The point was that you could leave your job to start new companies and create more jobs. Instead of relying on your employer for insurance, you could go on the exchange. If your employer is covering most or all of your health insurance premiums STAY ON THAT JOB. Paying for it yourself - especially if you have a spouse and children - is way too expensive. 6. The ACA is the worst possible solution. Leaving mega insurance companies to raise rates, increase deductibles, not pay large claims - after all they need to make a profit. The correct solution would have been Universal / Single Payer / Medicare for all. The other correct solution would have been to open up competition by allowing insurance companies to offer their products in all states. As it is now, filing state by state is cumbersome and extremely expensive for insurance companies - and state agencies are influenced by existing insurance companies to not allow more competitors. In the open competition model, the government would have to help people with pre-existing conditions - because left to their own devices, insurance companies would not cover them. Open up competition, or have the government pay for everyone. Either way has its problems - but the Affordable Care Act is a horrible middle ground solution that is killing the middle class with higher premiums every month (and less coverage). The anger over this law is widespread throughout the US. Liberals don't like it because it doesn't go far enough, and conservatives, of course, hate it.

Affordable Care? What horse shit. My Kaiser went from $360 a month with $20 co pay and $2000 deductible to $580 a month, $5000 deductible and the co pay is $60 minimum and sometimes they charge $100. Just this week I FINALLY went in to a dermatologist at Kaiser and she prescribed medication. For the tube of cream and a bottle of pills Kaiser tried to charge me $830.00 . I refused the payment, refused the pills and cream. What the hell is so AFFORDABLE with this ripoff? I have the Bronze plan which is the cheapest... so I pay $7000 a year if I never see a doctor. It has the highest deductible. If I want their lowest deductible on the Gold Plan it will cost me $11,000 a year. WHAT THE HELL IS SO AFFORDABLE ABOUT THAT? I pay out of my own pocket. I'm retired with limited income, not old enough at 62 to get Medicare.

My Dad had to sell his private practice to a large hospital company because of the heavy costs to doctors from this bill.

Obamacare cost my mom her job and her insurance and insurance prices went way up and coverage went down. It is a disaster.

Since this act I have acquired over $9000 in medical bills, with insurance, paid those off in less than 6 months, and went from paying $35/month for healthcare to $750/month for the same healthcare. Prior to the act I paid, at one job, $0/month and had an incredible PPO that covered pretty much everything. I also went from being able to get a well women exam yearly, to now it is every 3-5 years. My parents went from paying no penalty for not having insurance to paying a penalty because they cannot afford the exchanges, therefore they must pay the tax/fine. Thus, though the numbers cumulatively may look better, my personal experience has been higher cost overall for less care.

unaffordable health care act...I keep expecting the crash course music

Before the law took effect I was paying about $470/mth with $6,500 deductible for a healthy family of four with no medical issues at all. Once the law took effect, that plan got thrown out as being not compliant with the new law. So I lost that plan. 1st year on the exchange plan, the best deal I found was abt $780/month. I qualified for a subsidy that brought my out of pocket cost to abt $420/mth but my deductible was $12,000! If I would have kept the same deductible as my previous plan ($6,500) it would have cost abt $1,200/mth. This coming year of 2017 the plan I bought through the exchange is going up from $750/mth (with subsidy $450/mth out of pocket) to $1,130/mth ($760/mth out of pocket with subsidy) for the same $12,000 deductible. And this family of 4 is still healthy with no health issues. So as you can see Obamacare clearly isn't work for this middle class family. How can I pay a $750/mth premium for something I cannot use until I've paid out $12,000 for a claim? That makes no economic sense. Yet I must or I'll have to pay a penalty. Clearly, I was better off before Obamacare took effect. I paid a lower monthly premium, I was not a burden to the system as I needed no subsidy, my deductible was half of what it is now and my participation was voluntary.

I'm Canadian, and one of the things I am most proud of my country for is universal health care. I would rather pay higher taxes for the rest of my life and never have to set foot in a hospital than to see a fellow Canadian be unable to pay for a life-saving procedure. How can you be proud to be American but be uncaring towards the health of Americans?

The law also forces people to get healthcare and adds on a hefty tax penalty that increases every year you don't have it. There are millions of Americans that can't afford even the cheapest plans on Obamacare that also can't get government subsidies to cover it. With the tax penalty increasing, they are being totally crushed. Oh, but how convenient of you to fail to mention that. How wonderful that you didn't talk about the people whose lives it's currently ruining.

"There are no death panels" Unless you have to get your healthcare from the VA.

If you want to fix the affordability of our healthcare you have to introduce competition. Health Insurance companies should be forced to take on a percentage based system, where they cover a certain percentage of certain procedures - you still pay a small premium and those percentages can be as high as 99%. On top of this hospitals and doctots should be forced to make their prices public. This stops our current system where people don't care where they get care or what price gets charged to the insurance company, so doctors and hospitals can charge whatever they want. It allows capitalism to fix what the blind socialism that is our health insurance industry has created. We can go single payer for emergency care since the injured would have no choice where they go and would most likely just go to the nearest hospital.

The affordable care act is NOT working five years later, it is bankrupting the middle class. And this stuff about pre existing conditions not being covered until obamacare is a flat out lie. 46 states had state laws requiring coverage of pre existing conditions as well as high risk pools that they no longer have thanks to Obamacare. I know I am one with a pre, and my insurance was affordable, and I got to keep my doctor and my insurance, NONE of which has been true with Obamacare. My coverage is no longer affordable, and I am not eligible for any assistance, I had to change doctors and I didn't get to keep the insurance I had, as was the case with millions of other people after Obama lied to us about this over 20 times and the ACA was passed, so this dude needs to get his facts straight.

It's just a bummer that we (the people) think government is the only way to solve the healthcare issue. People were covered at a much higher percentage when they pooled their money into fraternal societies. These societies were ultimately struck down by government (UK and US) and replaced with onerous laws that prevented us to provide for ourselves.

What is it with RU-vidrs changing their seating position every 2 seconds??

ACA had a major negative impact for the self employed.

oh boy i love watching videos about America's bad government. see you next week, john.

Hey. You. Scroll back up. You don't want to be in a comments section about obamacare, no matter what side you're on.

except now people who DO work for big companies get to pay for healthcare twice, because what was once part of their negotiated wage is now also coming out of their paycheck

I've been living in the U.S. for 7 months, I love this country as I love my own country (Brazil). However, the thing that bothers most is the lack of a public health system... I truly can't understand why so many people are selfish and belive that someone must die if he/she doesn't have money to afford medical care. I mean, it doesn't matter if the person is devil or saint, if you care a little bit about society it is easy to understand that you can't change a person's situation if she/he is not alive! I am saying that because some people believe that drug addicts or criminals deserve not affording medical care for example. This is crazy. I am glad that Obama Care took some steps on that, I hope one day America crates a real universal medical care system

Thank you John, people are always complaining about America and the president. Even though there are still many people going without there is still change going on. Peoples always focus on the negatives but don't want to look at the whole picture. The positive, AND the negatives. I personally like Obama. It's not because I'm African American, it's because you can tell that he genuinely cares about the country and I don't expect him to fix all the mistakes that politicians did years ago.

Hey there, here's a 2016 update. I've always had health insurance through my EMPLOYER. I went in for my Humira refill at Kaiser last month, only to find that the price has risen by over 200%. The federal negotiations with Kaiser reclassified my drug as a specialty. There is no comparable replacement. Thanks Obama!

He should probably acknowledge how many families who were insured previously have found their bills exponentially higher than before. The many families who were forced to change doctors even though they were promised that they wouldn't have to. The many people who had insurance previously via their employers, only for their companies to exploit loopholes and now those people cannot afford insurance nor the ACA. Despite all of that, I am grateful for the Affordable Care Act, because at least it's something and at least it's a start. I am grateful that as a young adult, I am able to be insured for the first time ever. And it has helped many of my friends and family who were previously unable to obtain insurance. But I can't deny the many people who were negatively affected by it. So I'm conflicted. I agree with the facts presented in this video, but I think ignores many of the detriments I mentioned before. Here's to hoping for major improvements, because we do need universal health care.

Wait until you see the premiums this year... Your head is going to explode.

In 2003 I had just graduated from high school. I took a job working in construction. This was a time in which I had the least education and fewest skills of my entire adult life and yet my insurance for a month was the cost of one day's pay. My deductible was $500. At age 20 I injured my hand and needed a surgery. I chose my doctor, who was a well renowned orthopedic surgeon who graduated top of his class at John Hopkins. He operated on my badly maimed hand for 8 hours. It cost me $500 out of pocket and to this day I have no problems with my hand. He was a remarkable doctor. Now we can't choose our doctors and deductibles ranged 4,000 to 6,000. My monthly premiums were never higher than $125 until the ACA became law. If I had to go through that again today I'm not sure I would be able to get the same quality of care.

ACA caused premiums and deductibles to skyrocket and I'm $30K in medical debt plus I have to pay a penalty for not being able to afford "affordable " care act. This is a complete disaster. So...what drugs were you on while making this video???????? Shame on You for posting all these lies on your channel!!!

The real problem started when in the 1990's the insurance companies became "for profit" health plans. I had a great blue cross plan for a family of three. It was $76.00 a month...90/10 with $250.00 deductible. A year later it climbed to $500.00 a month. Then they dropped the plan and for the same amount I now had 80/20 with 500 deductible. That was 20 years ago. I am appalled at what families now pay for a really crappy plan. Our greedy corporations have ruined the middle class.

It's worked wonderful for me. I've worked at the same company for nearly 30 years with my healthcare provided at no cost to me. Since the implementation of Obamacare, my company has cancelled our insurance and opted to pay the fine. I now purchase my insurance on the secondary for $640 per month for my family. Oh well. Who needs to own a newer vehicle anyway?

PUNISHMENT! PUNISHMENT! The video was over 7 minutes!!!

Just a Canadian here. Enjoying a video... Enjoying my health.

I work for (have have for 7 years) a small business, wayyyy less than 50 employees. And I'm not, nor have ever been, paid enough to afford reasonable health insurance. They aren't required to pay for my health insurance, nor are they required to pay me enough to afford it. So, when I was sent to the emergency room last year for a UTI that made it to my bladder (and could have killed me) I had to pay the almost $3,000 ON MY OWN on just barely above minimum wage. Lets just say I lost a lot of weight between last year and this year, because I literally had to not eat some days to pay off medical bills. SOMETHING should be done.

Yes, this video is educational. It was made with the intention of passing on information about the ACA. So no, John does not have a punishment coming for him. Good video though.

interesting to see an update, especially after the SCOTUS ruling, and just announced 25% average increases and providers dropping out.

The last stat I saw was somewhere around 76% of us in the US are living paycheck to paycheck, with the average Insurance deductible being around 14,000 dollars. So what we have is unaffordable insurance premiums either covered by our employer deducted from our wages or subsidised by our government ( Obamacare) so approx. 76% of Americans have health insurance but can't afford health care. Fact.

Shame the claims made here in the video in early 2015 have now are no longer correct. Premiums going up on average 20% in 2017 and insurance companies are pulling out not coming in. In my area we will only have one company to choose from for 2017.

As a Canadian, I feel blessed to have "universal" healthcare (it's far from universal). Although our model is definitely a step (or several) above Obamacare, it doesn't come close to that of many European countries. I haven't been to the dentist in 13 years, and although at the last eye exam I went to the said I had symptoms of glaucoma, I haven't gone back for further (expensive) testing. That said, I never worry about going to a clinic or the hospital, and when I had my appendix out last year it didn't cost a cent. I hope America can get to this level very soon.

The ACA screwed up health insurance in the US majorly especially for those of us who had decent (reg working class hourly skilled labor) insurance with our employers! You say nothing changes for those people, you know the ones who didn’t switch to an aca plan! That couldn’t be further from the truth! We went from having good insurance with low deductibles ($250/person) low $20 copays for around $240/month. To a $1200-$2600/month premium with a $14,000 deductible! And you can’t even use an HSA with it!!!! What an absolute abomination!

As an insurance agent I can tell you that YES Obamacare makes the system a little better than it was. I can also agree with John when he says that the main problem is healthcare costs, which are allowed to be set at whatever level the companies feels like.

*votes to repeal Obamacare for the 157th time*

Howdy hi hi, While I realize this comment is very late to the game. But whenever I come across something talking about the patient protection and affordable health care act AKA Obamacare. Especially when it's tone is positive I try to make sure to comment. In the speech given by President Obama to congress first introducing this as a bill my own health care situation was really pretty bad. Basically I couldn't work, couldn't seem to convince social security that I couldn't work, had no health care insurance of any kind save the emergency room variety. I was in a phrase basically waiting to die. I have multiple chronic conditions some of which can kill me very easily. But none of which are of a variety that modern medicine can do anything other than to treat the symptoms. So when when he came to the part where under this new proposed law that it would be illegal to deny someone health insurance due to preexisting conditions. I literally cried out loud, and quite loudly at that. And while I wouldn't understand this part until many years later. It was in that moment that something which I considered was something that only children had. President Obama became my hero. He paid a heavy political price for what they did to get it passed. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that I am alive today due to what he did on that day and the many months that followed. And so, even belatedly, I thank you John Green for doing this video. And thank you more especially to President Obama. Ciao, I hope your day and endeavors treat you well. And I am so very glad to hear that you brother is now in remission.

Other countries seem really happy about how shitty our healthcare system is. Ease up guys, we're dyin' ovah here! A little compassion would be welcome

Anyone complaining about premiums should take a second and think about whether or not that's the government's fault or the fault of insurance companies who have a profit motive. Premiums charged by whom?

obamacare pisses me off!

I'm just happy that i have the NHS.

This presentation is incredibly biased, no time given to the negative effects realized from the bill. 2 seconds of "doesnt seem to be negatively effecting the job market" does not refute all the evidence that suggests otherwise

My company was always great at providing awesome health insurance to its ~20,000 employees. But has had major hikes in their premiums over the last 3 years since the ACA started. They have seen close to a 300% increase in 3 years. Although I can agree that having mor insured individuals is good this program is just giving the insurance companies a blank check that the government is cashing. Without my job my insurance, which covers only basic preventative care for free, would cost me $600+ a month. How does anyone afford that? You can't force everyone to go get insurance without regulating the price gouging that has been going on.

The American health system genuinely scares me. I couldn't imagine living somewhere knowing that it would take me years to pay off my medical bills, even if it was a simple procedure. Education and health-care should always be government controlled (with the exception of wealthy people paying a premium for better quality).

Strange he doesn’t talk much about the impacts on premiums, deductibles, etc. So in other words, I’m going to judge it based on what it was intended to do, and not on the unintended consequences of it (which is what the criticism of it was mostly about)

does it work? no, in no way shape or form. it never will. did it get better. no, in no way shape or form. I pay twice as much and get half of the covrage I once recived.

I live in Canada! *frolics through meadows*

This segment was so selective with its cherry picked facts that it borders on pro ACA propaganda but to your credit you were never shy about your pro socialized medicine stance and you're fawning adulation for the Canadian system. If you really want to see how good the Canadian system is just go do a cardiac ward in Buffalo New York and see how many Canadians are there. The serious stuff in Canada has a very long waiting list.

I honestly don't get a lot of america's seeming distaste for universal healthcare. I mean in the UK we have the NHS which while not perfect is certainly well loved and personally i know no one who wouldn't deeply defend our right to free healthcare, and god knows i'm sure its far more convenient than insurance.

Canadian health care system = VA Health care

What about now if I don't have health insurance I have to pay a fine to the irs?

Love how you show your sources!! Makes it so much valid!! :) (in an academic sense... gee university is really getting to me) I would love to hear the political side of Obamacare, more specifically what are the reasons behind not supporting the policy. My general understanding is that a large section of the American population are conservative and prefer a small government, Obamacare goes against that in that it would be more involved in their affairs, and politicians from conservative background or in a conservative region would have to take the small government stance.

So, tell me again why we're not all rushing to vote for socialized health care?

The premise of this "analysis" is that there aren't enough regulations in place yet to make the system really good. How can people think these brothers are neutral, when they are so far left?

If the amount of money that the U.S. spends on the military was actually spent on universal health care instead, wouldn't we have a better universal health care system then any of the European countries? Also, we already have a powerful military, how much more do we need to spend?

No. It is not working. Unless you own or are a top executive of, Humana, Aetna, BCBS, United Healthcare, Cigna, etc. Or if you're on welfare. Then yeah, it's working great!

I love John Green, but man, please do not say "a truly free market system where if you show up and you don't have insurance, you don't get treatment." There are thousands if not tens of thousands of institutions in the United States that offer radically cheaper if not free health services. Ron Paul himself was performing surgeries for $3/hour. Charitable organizations are fully a part of the free market system. In summary, a truly free market system is not going to increase the amount of people who die in the streets because they don't have insurance

just from that opening statistic you can tell how stupid the american system is you spend more tax money per person on private healthcare than in countries with universal healthcare and yet everyone says universal healthcare would cost too much :/

I don't have health care because Covered California tells me that a mixed family like mine needs to be covered through Welfare. Welfare tells me Covered California needs to offer me coverage meanwhile both companies that my wife and I work for wants to charge us 1,200 dollars a month to cover our family and continues to say that if one of our Family members gets hospitalized, I have to pay an additional 10,00 annual deductible and We're still responsible for 20% of the bill. What the hell is happening to America? I'm so disappointed

1. American Doctors are paid way too much. 2. American hospitals should use a tender system to buy supplies. The prices they buy supplies with are outrageous.

Having a completely free-market healthcare solution invariably means that certain people will be denied treatment based exclusively on their inability to afford it. That is not an alternative solution that modern First World society should even suggest. Of course there will always be that one guy who argues that charity will solve this problem -- right, because the rich greedy plutocrats with affluenza today will suddenly become sufficiently charitable after their moneyed influence becomes even greater. The fact is that various universal healthcare models have worked for all the countries that have adopted them, whereas privatized healthcare evidently has not. Even if the goal of capitalism is to have people ranked by their merit, we must first and fundamentally establish an equitable playing field.

Most informative, as a Londoner I just had a bio absorbable scaffold fitted in my LAD (largest artery in heart muscle) Cost Zero - I even got bangers and mash, cheesecake, apple juice, tea and coffee, the latest US tech. from Abbott Industries (God bless America) they used to be stents now they use a polymer that dissolves within 2 yrs! Free Oh and I waited 2 weeks from diagnosis.

Is it just me, or are puff levels now getting higher, as well as wider?

My job offers healthcare insurance but only cover preventative diseases and sickness. No ER coverage, no hospital coverage. basic just buying it not to get fined. oh by the way I'm a nurse I know how to prevent disease and illnesses

Did anyone else notice the way he is talking? It is a lot different than his other videos. It sounds like he is just spitting out mindless talking points, whether you agree with him or not.

7:10 - "Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated" -- our current president; February 27, 2017

John, thank you for making this video!

wait wait wait, you wrote that book that was made into the movie of the poster behind you....and you don't make enough money for your own health insurance?????