The Affordable Care Act has taken some hits in the courts (but so far has survived the biggest attacks), and it is not terribly popular.
But is it working as it was intended? Yes, according to this piece by Sarah Kliff. An excerpt:
[I]f you look beyond the political fights, the picture looks very different [from what's been reported recently in the press]. Obamacare is, policy-wise, having a great month — maybe even the law's best month ever. Jonathan Chait wrote a piece in New York magazine detailing four recent studies that show Obamacare is working. Some of it has to do with the part of the law that we all know the best — the coverage expansion to millions of Americans. Study after study shows that the Affordable Care Act has increased the number of Americans with health insurance. And this wasn't actually taken as a given at this point last year: there was some speculation that coverage rates might actually drop in 2014, as Obamacare's regulations cancelled millions of individual policies. Then there are the parts of Obamacare that are about improving the health care system not just for the uninsured, but for everyone who goes to the doctor. And here, too, the law seems to be working. Health care costs grew at their slowest rate ever in 2013 — in part due to Obamacare's spending cuts — according to a recent study in Health Affairs. And hospitals have been making fewer deadly medical errors since the Affordable Care Act began cutting Medicare reimbursements for institutions with lots of errors.
