State Insurance Exchanges (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)
(Please note: Our website is an independent website, not a part of PPACA or any government program)
"Obamacare", which is officially called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or PPACA for short (and also called the Federal Health Care Law), is designed to give insurance options to low income people and to reduce the number of uninsured in the US. The official US government site is located at: Healthcare.gov.
Obamacare is a very complex issue; there is a lot of information in the Wikipedia article on PPACA. But in short, this is a program funded by mandates, tax credits, and subsidies, so that more people can get covered by health insurance. The insurance is made available through insurance exchanges; many of these will be run by states, otherwise the federal government will run an exchange. If a state does not want to run its own state insurance agency, the federal government will do so for that state. PPACA is also improving healthcare outcomes, and making the system more efficient. The US government studies Obamacare and concluded that it will reduce the federal deficit, and reduce the cost of Medicare as well.
There is some controversy about Obamacare; about its funding, its effectiveness, and its fairness (depending on your income level). So do your research to see if Obamacare is better or worse for your exact situation then other insurance options.
It is still very early to assess Obamacare. But we must not lose sight of how important the issues are. it does seem to make sense to have a state insurance agency helping the citizens of each state. And in most civilized countries of the world, the poor do have insurance options; pregant women are all take care of; and all children have health insurance. It is a travesty that the richest country in the world does not provide these basic needs.