The editorial, "Thanks, Obamacare" (Sept. 18), argues the numbers behind why the Affordable Care Act is successful at reforming health care beneficially in the United States. While I may find some sources of these claims to be questionable, I will assume that The Sun has made claims based on sound data.
While many of my views parallel or are in align with some facets of the arguments presented in the editorial, I find it difficult to understand some of the logic regarding the numbers. My largest concern regarding Obamacare in general is whether the sheer amount of covered people in the country is a valuable enough metric. I believe that that is, indeed, an important part of how Obamacare is to be successful, but I think it must also relate to the quality of health care that is provided.
I concede that this is a harder metric to measure. However, simply stating that more people are covered is not convincing enough in regard to the mass effect of the bill. Sure, people who were previously uninsured are now insured, but private companies are likely going to make compromises in other parts of their available plans in order to accommodate these people. Obamacare does set standards for these but they are not necessarily enough. The quality of health care for those who were subscribed before the bill may have declined just as well in the forms of higher costs for the same plan or decreased coverage.
The argument for Obamacare is quite complex as the over 900-page bill covers quite a range of topics, but if we are to quantitatively argue the effectiveness of it in regards to the increase in numbers of subscribers, it is simply not enough without other directly related supplemental data such as the ones proposed here.
Andrew Phung, Richmond, Va.