27 June 2020 - The battles over the health law have played out during a decade of continuous economic growth. How it performs as a safety net now may help determine its future.
The Affordable Care Act, the landmark health law that has been a subject of caustic debate for more than a decade, is being tested as never before, as millions of Americans lose their jobs and medical coverage in the midst of the nation’s gravest health crisis in a century.
The law is offering a vast majority of newly unemployed people a path to stopgap health coverage, providing a cushion that did not exist during the last crushing recession — or ever before. But the crisis has also highlighted fundamental weaknesses with its patchwork system — ones magnified by Republican efforts to undermine and dismantle it, but also seized on by some Democrats pushing for a sweeping overhaul.