Christian Garcia

College Student

          Politics can be a deceptive and dishonest entity. Rarely do we encounter politicians and their administrations to be truly transparent about their policies and plans. When it comes to the Obama administration, there is no exception to this fact. In a political cartoon of Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) (also known as Obamacare), illustrated by Amy Payne on April 1^st, 2014 in her illustration and commentary titled "The Joke's On Us: April Fools!", all different types of smiling people lined up outside a door were depicted with thought bubbles claiming their reasons to sign up for the government healthcare. Though the costs of ACA were hidden and payment solutions were assumed to be successful, this administration has hidden the true costs to appeal to the greater population of the United States so that it would be enacted. This is very persuasive because of its ability to express commonly understood promises from the president and his legislation. These two primary sources of Avik Roy and “April Fools!” both perpetuate the discourse of the very complex, yet simple construction of Obamacare in order to hide the true costs and avoid being transparent, yet all-the-while working to give the impression that it has always been transparent. Obamacare has been supposedly very useful for the fraction of Americans that have chosen to sign up for it or were forced to because of their plan that didn't meet the standards of the Medicare legislation. As this same Washington Post article stated,

          "President Obama has repeatedly said, since the health law passed, that if people like their insurance they could keep it. Which is a weird promise to make when one of the key goals of the health-care law is to change individual market insurance coverage." However, I am here to break down the statistics and costs of  ACA so my peers can get a better understanding of what can lie under the opaque sheet of disguise called legislation that impacts Americans everyday. Ironically enough, the “Affordable” Care Act is not a smart way to go when looking for less expensive, yet better options. If the act is so affordable and cheap, why is it costing the nation millions of dollars more than before the ACA hit the healthcare market? It will come at the expense of today’s younger generations. “Insurers can only charge their oldest customers three times as much as they charge their youngest ones. Because 64-year-olds consume about six times as much health care as 21-year-olds, this provision has the net effect of jacking up prices for the young” (Roy). In fact, the “Affordable” Care Act is estimated to add $1.2 trillion to the national deficit over the next decade. As the president continued to insist on these facts throughout his 1^st and 2^nd terms, it became very insulting to the American people who researched and learned of the future effects of the act. With one of my friend's dad I spoke with recently who owns his a business. He began speaking with me about the effects that the Affordable Care Act has had on his work and his family's insurance rates. He explained that his family's health-care insurance plan cost has risen 36%, which is outrageous. Of course, when President Obama stated that its cost were very low if people signed up for it, the money had to come from somewhere. In this case, the money is coming from hard-working small business men and women, rather than large business. In the long run, this may destroy the small businesses of America and frowns upon the entrepreneurs of this country. I do believe that this will strongly impact out economy in the long run. Our generation will eventually have no choice but to pay off this debt. As many people as this government program may help, the people paying it off definitely seem to outweigh its positives. What can Obamacare cost your family? Find out here.

The video used for this blog post can be found at this link:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB0QtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DDDok6bF36Ps&ei=4npNVeuWKKjHsQSHwYDIAw&usg=AFQjCNFuNRydxjjMnB_AVzPQeR14wpdH8w&bvm=bv.92885102,d.cWc