Our Grandchildren Will Never Have Heard of a “Preexisting Condition.” Thanks, Obamacare.

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One of my Twitter followers pointed out something interesting this morning: interest in preexisting conditions has plummeted on Google. Here’s the chart:

There are a couple of spikes around 2010, when Obamacare was first passed, but other than that it’s been a fairly steady decrease ever since. By 2015, so few people were worried about being denied health insurance because of a preexisting condition that they weren’t even bothering to Google it. That’s exactly how it should be. Thanks, Obamacare.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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