The Obama Diary

My DR's assistant just informed me that - for the first time - Blue Cross has to cover my physicals because of #Obamacare

—
kara vallow (@teenagesleuth) August 25, 2025

@teenagesleuth also your mammograms, PAPs, colonoscopies - anything preventative. Also nicotine patches/gum for ppl wanting to quit smoking.

—
Mary Hartman (@MaryHartmanx2) August 25, 2025

****

David Leonhardt: Medicare: Not Such A Budget-Buster Anymore

You’re looking at the biggest story involving the federal budget and a crucial one for the future of the American economy. Every year for the last six years in a row, the Congressional Budget Office has reduced its estimate for how much the federal government will need to spend on Medicare in coming years. The latest reduction came in a report from the budget office on Wednesday morning. The changes are big. The difference between the current estimate for Medicare’s 2019 budget and the estimate for the 2019 budget four years ago is about $95 billion dollars. That sum is greater than the government is expected to spend that year on unemployment insurance, welfare and Amtrak — combined. It’s equal to about one-fifth of the expected Pentagon budget in 2019. Widely discussed policy changes, like raising the estate tax, would generate just a tiny fraction of the budget savings relative to the recent changes in Medicare’s spending estimates.

The incredible shrinking Medicare budget nyti.ms/1oprBU0 http://t.co/BxnGoxRpah

—
The New York Times (@nytimes) August 27, 2025

In more concrete terms, the reduced estimates mean that the federal government’s long-term budget deficit is considerably less severe than commonly thought just a few years ago. The reduced estimates are also an indication of what’s happening in the overall health care system. Even as more people are getting access to health insurance, the costs of caring for individual patients is growing at a super-slow rate. That means that health care, which has eaten into salary gains for years and driven up debt and bankruptcies, may be starting to stabilize as a share of national spending. The Affordable Care Act, in particular, made significant reductions to Medicare’s spending on hospitals and private Medicare plans, to help subsidize insurance coverage for low- and middle-income Americans.

More here

****

@teenagesleuth ACA has helped so many people! I am one of them!🌝

—
Nativegirl (@powhatannative) August 26, 2025

I fckng love how medical professionals cheerfully refer to "Obamacare".

—
kara vallow (@teenagesleuth) August 25, 2025

@teenagesleuth They should call it what I do, Common sense healthcare reform.

—
Greg Coogan (@Greg_Coogan) August 25, 2025