WASHINGTON (AP) – More than 16 million Americans have gained insurance coverage as a result of President Barack Obama’s health care law, the administration said Monday as the White House prepares to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the law’s signing.
In releasing the latest estimates, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell called it “the largest reduction in the uninsured in four decades.”
Obama signed the Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010, but it has been politically divisive from the start.
Democrats hailed it as the culmination of decades of effort to guarantee health coverage for all Americans, including people with health problems who until then could have been turned away by insurance companies. Republicans called it government overreach, and haven’t stopped trying to repeal or roll back what they dismiss as “Obamacare.”
Burwell said the administration now estimates that 16.4 million people have gained coverage as a result of the law.