There is a quote attributed to multiple sources:
"You are entitled to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts."
Here are some facts on the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).
The tally for the total number of Americans getting coverage (so far!) thanks to the ACA:
• 8 million people have signed up for private health insurance through the state and federal marketplaces.
• 3 million more have signed up for coverage through expanded Medicaid but millions more are blocked by GOP governors and legislatures.
• 3 million now have coverage by staying on their parents' plan.
• 5 million people have signed up for ACA-compliant plans outside the marketplace, thus protecting themselves from lifetime caps, pre-existing condition denials, and higher female premiums.
In addition:
• 28% of enrollees are between the ages of 18 and 35. That's the same percentage as in Massachusetts, which has run a successful healthcare marketplace since 2007. Gallup echoes this point, writing that "the newly insured are, on average, much younger than the overall population."
• New Congressional Budget Office projections for 2016 insurance premiums are 15 percent lower than previous estimates, a reduction that they estimate to save $186 billion.
The basic rationale for the ACA was to provide health care for the uninsured. A new Gallup survey reveals that 4 percent of all Americans are newly ensured this year. This percent will increase next year, more so if delinquent states agree to expanded Medicaid coverage.
The market place is responding, according to Politico. In at least ten states, insurers that didn't offer coverage through the exchanges this year have said they plan to in 2015. This creates more options for consumers, and signals the strength of the ACA marketplaces and its attractiveness to private insurance companies.
As a result a recent Kaiser survey found that 59 percent of Americans want keep the law in place or improve it, while only 29 percent want get rid of it. Pew reports that even a "majority of ACA opponents -- representing 30% of the public overall -- want politicians to do what they can to make the law work as well as possible, compared with 19% of the public that wants elected officials to do what they can to make it fail."
What are the counter facts? So far the opposition has produced anecdotal evidence of people paying higher premiums or lasing their existing plans and not being able to get coverage. But no data has been presented and few if any such stories have been verified. Let's see the data and figure out how to solve any real problems. The proponents of repeal need to make the case that these problems are of such a magnitude as to justify repealing Obamacare and undoing all the good it is bringing to Americans.
The ball is in the opposition's court and so far they do not seem to know what to do with it.