Zeke Emanuel: ObamaCare ‘Adding to the Boom in the Economy’

REID: “The Affordable Care Act passed. We were told the world was gonna completely end. As far as I know, it is still standing. How has the ACA performed in your estimation?”

EMANUEL: “Well, it's not my estimation. It's just objective data. So, on the access point - how many people have gotten health insurance, how many people have gotten better health insurance from substandard health insurance, the number is certainly -- 11.5 million have signed up through the exchanges and we have many more, more than 10 million people through the Medicaid expansion even though 22 states haven’t expanded. We've got have kids up to 26-years-old on their parents’ plan; people who have upgraded and come into the system. Estimate in yesterday's Times was over 30 million have benefited just by the access part. Then there is the improvement in quality, the drop in hospital readmissions, less infections, very substantial. And then there is the cost control. We’ve had real slowdown in health care cost growth that is partially adding to the boom in the economy, not completely. Some of that is certainly due to the ACA. Exactly how much - we can debate for a long time and no doubt we will debate it, but the fact is it has had an impact on the access side, on the quality side and the cost side. It looks like a pretty big winner from everyone’s standpoint and as you point out, no major collapses in the system. There are growing pains but that is natural when you're going to change a $3 trillion part of the health economy.”