Chart of the Day: Obamacare Already Working

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Jon Cohn points out today that the new Census Bureau report on poverty provides some pretty good evidence that Obamacare is already working. Thanks to the recession, the number of people without healthcare coverage has risen among most age groups. But as the chart on the right shows, among the young it’s actually gone down. Why?

Why aren’t 18- to 24-year-olds suffering the same fate? What makes them so special?….The circumstantial evidence suggests, very strongly, that the Affordable Care Act is the primary factor.

Remember, one of the first provisions to take effect was a requirement that insurers allow young adults, up to age 26, to stay on their parents’ policies if employer-sponsored insurance is not available. Even though that requirement didn’t kick in until the fall, several insurers began offering such coverage earlier, in anticipation of the new rule….These numbers are striking — and seem to suggest that the Affordable Care Act is already helping large numbers of people.

This is what every single Republican presidential candidate and the entire Republican leadership wants to take away. Your mileage may vary, but it’s not a vision of America most of us should welcome.

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Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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