Healthcare isn't new! Health insurance coverage in the U.S. grew from near zero at the start of the 20th century to over 86% by the late 1980s. And approximately 64.1% of people were covered specifically by employment-related health insurance.
The 1940s and 1950s ushered in the "Golden Age of Medicine." Discoveries such as penicillin and the polio vaccine (1955) transformed infection control and infectious disease management increasing life expectancy by 30 years.
In the 1960s Government Intervention occurred with the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 providing federal funding for the elderly and low-income populations, drastically increasing access to healthcare.
The 1970s and 1980s saw focus shifted to managing chronic, lifestyle-driven diseases and advancements in biotechnology, including imaging (CAT, MRI) and the start of the Human Genome Project, an international study that provided basic information about the human blueprint (DNA) and the study of human biology and improved the practice of medicine.
In the 1990s, the Clinton administration planted the seed that all Americans should be entitled to universal health care, which was to be a cornerstone of the administration's first-term agenda. President Clinton delivered a major health care speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on September 22, 1993, during which he proposed an "enforced mandate" for employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees.
Clinton's bill proposed the following:
But there were other factors. It faced strong criticism from small-business lobbyists and the large scope of the plan (316 pages) made it difficult to explain to Congress and the public. It should have been obvious that the Health Insurance Association of America battled againt Hillarycare since the government would be selling health insurance plans in direct competition to their plans, and would be given the power to regulate their policies.
Enter Barack Obama.
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were disciples of Saul Alinsky so it's no surprise that between Clinton's attempt at government healthcare in 1993 and Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act of 2010 Democrats took control of our nation's healthcare. In his book Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky wrote "Control healthcare and you control people."
Under Barack Obama, the healthcare reform bill had grown from Hillary's 316 pages to the 2,490 pages of H.R.3200, titled "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009." With the defeat of Hillarycare, Democrats had learned a hard lesson and they were not about to let Obamacare slip through their fingers.
When a Bill titled "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009," (H.R.3590) appeared in the Democrat Senate, they wasted no time. On Christmas Eve 2009, they removed the three pages of the bill, inserted their own 2,490 page healthcare bill, and sent it back to the House as "ammended."
If you're over thirty, you might remember House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who famously said of Obamacare, "We have to pass this bill so that we can find out what's in it." On March 21 2010, the House Democrats passed H.R. 3590 now known as the "Affordable Care Act" (ACA). Not one Republican voted for this bill.
On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed H.R.3590 into law, referring to the bill as "having originaly been a different, smaller tax bill now renamed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or ACA."
Obama's Affordable Care Act overhauled the entire U.S. healthcare system: Medicare, Medicaid, insurance, taxation, standards, procedures, and even the medical profession itself.
The primary goal of Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) is to make affordable health insurance available to more people, expand the Medicaid program to include more low-income individuals, and support innovative medical care delivery methods to lower overall healthcare costs. It aims to reduce the number of uninsured Americans and protect consumers with pre-existing conditions.
It worked but not as expected.
Obama had promised Americans "If you like you healthcare plan you can keep it." Well, that was only true if your current healthcare plan met the new Obamacare "federal standards." And meeting new Obamacare "federal standards" also applied if you wanted to keep your current doctor.
Therefore, with the signing of Obamacare into law, millions of people lost their health insurance and doctors. And there was another catch to keeping your insurance plan. If you did not buy your healthcare through the Health Exchange, you could no longer deduct your premiums from your income tax.
Between 2009 and 2025, insured healthcare increased across America—by 4.0 perceent. But Medicaid enrollment increased by 84.3 percent. Medicaid spending grew from $387 billion to $990 billion.
But Barack Obama and Michele were clever. They had revived "racism in America" assuring that anyone objecting to whatever whim, whatever policy, or whatever mandate Barack conjured up, they were simply labled "raciist" and ignored.
Obamacare is based on 3 cheap insurance plans, Bronze, Silver and Gold. But the deductibles are $6,000, $5,000 and $3,000 respectively. If you want a cadillac plan, low deductible, there is a 43% excise tax on your premium.
For low incomes, though, the premium can be subsidized up to 100%.
What was mostly hidden from the public, Obamacare expanded the qualifying low income to 400% above the federal poverty level (FPL) or $100,400 annual income for a family of four. When the Obamacare Marketplace opened in 2013.[1], out of 20 million new enrollees, over 11 million were added to Medicaid rolls, 71% of whom were able-bodied working adults.
In order to support and stabilize the cost of the subsidied premiums, the Affordable Care Act required individuals to purchase essential health insurance – or face a tax penalty. The fines were intended to encourage healthy individuals to join the insurance risk pool but millions paid the penalty instead of buying insurance; as many as 1 out of 20 taxpayers.[2]
The federal government collected billions in Affordable Care Act (ACA) penalties each year but the penalty money wasn't used to support healthcare. Instead it was "dumped" into the Treasury to be appropriated by Congress and was used for various purposes, including the military or education. Since the penalty was nothing more than an additional tax, it was reduced to $0 in 2019.
It should be no surprise that health insurance costs have skyrocketed steadily since 2020, with employer-sponsored family premiums increasing over 24% since 2019. In 2021 alone, average premiums for family coverage rose 3.0% to $21,381, with worker contributions rising sharply by 7.2%. Costs are driven by increased hospital spending, high-cost drugs, and anticipated premium hikes of over 25% for 2026.
Deaths due to lack of medical care remain high despite 89% of Americans being insured because many insured individuals are facing the high deductibles of Obamacare, co-pays, and restricted coverage that cause them to delay or forgo necessary care. Uninsured individuals are 25% more likely to die, and the 11% uninsured population, combined with underinsured, creates a large pool of people skipping preventive care, a provision that is supposed to be free under Obamacare.
Over 40% of uninsured adults reported difficulties finding a doctor or being accepted as a new patient, severely limiting access. Imagine how this shortage would grow unsder free universal healthcare.
At the onset of Obamacare in 2009 there were 51.1 million Americans on Medicaid. By 2023 that number had increased to 79.9 million. Spending grew from $387 billion to $545 billion in the first year of Obamacare and by 2025 it had incresed to $990 billion.
At the onset of Obamacare, statistics claimed 37 million Americans were uninsured. In 2023, 26.2 million Americans are uninsured, a decrease of 11 million. However, during that same period of time, Medicaid enroollment incresed by 43 million prople.
So why is America's healthcare failing? Not only are the insured of America paying to subsidize Obamacare, the cost of Medicaid (free healthcare for the disadvantaged), neearly $1 trillion in taxpayer costs since the onset of Obamacare.
While the number of insured Americans has increased to about 310 million, 92% off the population, 45 million are on Obamacare and 94 million are enrolled in Medicaid.
In 2023, 26.2 million — 7.9% of Americans — did not have health insurance. Adults 65 and older were most likely to be covered: only 0.8% of them didn’t have health insurance. But among adults ages 19 to 64, 11.0% aren’t insured, along with 5.4% of Americans under 19.
While 1.6 million non-citizens were enrolled in Medicare before recent restrictions, the specific mortality count for this group is not known in current data, but they generally experience lower mortality than U.S.-born citizens.
As of 2023–2024, there are approximately 21.6 to 22.4 million non-citizen residents in the United States, comprising roughly 7% of the total population. This group includes legal permanent residents, temporary visa holders, and undocumented immigrants. Overall, the foreign-born population reached a record high of over 51 million in 2024
Key Requirements for Immigrants to Get Medicare:
[1] Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) enrollment began in earnest in 2014, with over 8 million signing up for exchange plans in the first year. By the late 2010s (approx. 2017–2019), marketplace enrollment stabilized around 10–12 million annually, while Medicaid expansion added millions more to covered rolls, significantly dropping the national uninsured rate to roughly 9–10% by 2017.
[2] As of early 2026, just under 23 million people selected an Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plan for the new coverage year. This follows a record high in early 2025, where over 24 million consumers selected plans. Total enrollment, including Medicaid expansion, has exceeded 45 million in recent years with spending appraoching $1 Trillion.
[3] The HFRP (Haitian Family Relief Program) allowed Haitian families living in the U.S.A. to have relatives released from Haitian prisons and paroled in the U.S.A. The program was expanded by President Joe Biden to allow "sponsers" to have prisoners released from prisons in Columbia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Savadore, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras to be paroled in the U.S.A.
The 1940s and 1950s ushered in the "Golden Age of Medicine." Discoveries such as penicillin and the polio vaccine (1955) transformed infection control and infectious disease management increasing life expectancy by 30 years.
In the 1960s Government Intervention occurred with the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 providing federal funding for the elderly and low-income populations, drastically increasing access to healthcare.
The 1970s and 1980s saw focus shifted to managing chronic, lifestyle-driven diseases and advancements in biotechnology, including imaging (CAT, MRI) and the start of the Human Genome Project, an international study that provided basic information about the human blueprint (DNA) and the study of human biology and improved the practice of medicine.
In the 1990s, the Clinton administration planted the seed that all Americans should be entitled to universal health care, which was to be a cornerstone of the administration's first-term agenda. President Clinton delivered a major health care speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on September 22, 1993, during which he proposed an "enforced mandate" for employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees.
Clinton's bill proposed the following:
- Employers would be required to provide health insurance to their full-time employees. Small businesses would receive subsidies to help provide insurance.
- State-based cooperatives would sell approved health insurance plans to consumers and regulate insurance companies.
- The unemployed, self-employed, and part-time employees would receive subsidies to help them purchase insurance through the cooperatives.
- All Americans would be required to obtain health insurance. Any citizen who chose not to enroll could be enrolled automatically by the state cooperative and charged twice the normal premium.
- The federal government would set minimum standards that all health insurance plans would be required to cover.
- Insurance companies would not be allowed to discriminate against pre-existing conditions.
But there were other factors. It faced strong criticism from small-business lobbyists and the large scope of the plan (316 pages) made it difficult to explain to Congress and the public. It should have been obvious that the Health Insurance Association of America battled againt Hillarycare since the government would be selling health insurance plans in direct competition to their plans, and would be given the power to regulate their policies.
Enter Barack Obama.
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were disciples of Saul Alinsky so it's no surprise that between Clinton's attempt at government healthcare in 1993 and Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act of 2010 Democrats took control of our nation's healthcare. In his book Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky wrote "Control healthcare and you control people."
Under Barack Obama, the healthcare reform bill had grown from Hillary's 316 pages to the 2,490 pages of H.R.3200, titled "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009." With the defeat of Hillarycare, Democrats had learned a hard lesson and they were not about to let Obamacare slip through their fingers.
When a Bill titled "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009," (H.R.3590) appeared in the Democrat Senate, they wasted no time. On Christmas Eve 2009, they removed the three pages of the bill, inserted their own 2,490 page healthcare bill, and sent it back to the House as "ammended."
If you're over thirty, you might remember House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who famously said of Obamacare, "We have to pass this bill so that we can find out what's in it." On March 21 2010, the House Democrats passed H.R. 3590 now known as the "Affordable Care Act" (ACA). Not one Republican voted for this bill.
On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed H.R.3590 into law, referring to the bill as "having originaly been a different, smaller tax bill now renamed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or ACA."
Obama's Affordable Care Act overhauled the entire U.S. healthcare system: Medicare, Medicaid, insurance, taxation, standards, procedures, and even the medical profession itself.
The primary goal of Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) is to make affordable health insurance available to more people, expand the Medicaid program to include more low-income individuals, and support innovative medical care delivery methods to lower overall healthcare costs. It aims to reduce the number of uninsured Americans and protect consumers with pre-existing conditions.
It worked but not as expected.
Obama had promised Americans "If you like you healthcare plan you can keep it." Well, that was only true if your current healthcare plan met the new Obamacare "federal standards." And meeting new Obamacare "federal standards" also applied if you wanted to keep your current doctor.
Therefore, with the signing of Obamacare into law, millions of people lost their health insurance and doctors. And there was another catch to keeping your insurance plan. If you did not buy your healthcare through the Health Exchange, you could no longer deduct your premiums from your income tax.
Between 2009 and 2025, insured healthcare increased across America—by 4.0 perceent. But Medicaid enrollment increased by 84.3 percent. Medicaid spending grew from $387 billion to $990 billion.
But Barack Obama and Michele were clever. They had revived "racism in America" assuring that anyone objecting to whatever whim, whatever policy, or whatever mandate Barack conjured up, they were simply labled "raciist" and ignored.
Obamacare is based on 3 cheap insurance plans, Bronze, Silver and Gold. But the deductibles are $6,000, $5,000 and $3,000 respectively. If you want a cadillac plan, low deductible, there is a 43% excise tax on your premium.
For low incomes, though, the premium can be subsidized up to 100%.
What was mostly hidden from the public, Obamacare expanded the qualifying low income to 400% above the federal poverty level (FPL) or $100,400 annual income for a family of four. When the Obamacare Marketplace opened in 2013.[1], out of 20 million new enrollees, over 11 million were added to Medicaid rolls, 71% of whom were able-bodied working adults.
In order to support and stabilize the cost of the subsidied premiums, the Affordable Care Act required individuals to purchase essential health insurance – or face a tax penalty. The fines were intended to encourage healthy individuals to join the insurance risk pool but millions paid the penalty instead of buying insurance; as many as 1 out of 20 taxpayers.[2]
The federal government collected billions in Affordable Care Act (ACA) penalties each year but the penalty money wasn't used to support healthcare. Instead it was "dumped" into the Treasury to be appropriated by Congress and was used for various purposes, including the military or education. Since the penalty was nothing more than an additional tax, it was reduced to $0 in 2019.
It should be no surprise that health insurance costs have skyrocketed steadily since 2020, with employer-sponsored family premiums increasing over 24% since 2019. In 2021 alone, average premiums for family coverage rose 3.0% to $21,381, with worker contributions rising sharply by 7.2%. Costs are driven by increased hospital spending, high-cost drugs, and anticipated premium hikes of over 25% for 2026.
Deaths due to lack of medical care remain high despite 89% of Americans being insured because many insured individuals are facing the high deductibles of Obamacare, co-pays, and restricted coverage that cause them to delay or forgo necessary care. Uninsured individuals are 25% more likely to die, and the 11% uninsured population, combined with underinsured, creates a large pool of people skipping preventive care, a provision that is supposed to be free under Obamacare.
Over 40% of uninsured adults reported difficulties finding a doctor or being accepted as a new patient, severely limiting access. Imagine how this shortage would grow unsder free universal healthcare.
At the onset of Obamacare in 2009 there were 51.1 million Americans on Medicaid. By 2023 that number had increased to 79.9 million. Spending grew from $387 billion to $545 billion in the first year of Obamacare and by 2025 it had incresed to $990 billion.
At the onset of Obamacare, statistics claimed 37 million Americans were uninsured. In 2023, 26.2 million Americans are uninsured, a decrease of 11 million. However, during that same period of time, Medicaid enroollment incresed by 43 million prople.
So why is America's healthcare failing? Not only are the insured of America paying to subsidize Obamacare, the cost of Medicaid (free healthcare for the disadvantaged), neearly $1 trillion in taxpayer costs since the onset of Obamacare.
While the number of insured Americans has increased to about 310 million, 92% off the population, 45 million are on Obamacare and 94 million are enrolled in Medicaid.
In 2023, 26.2 million — 7.9% of Americans — did not have health insurance. Adults 65 and older were most likely to be covered: only 0.8% of them didn’t have health insurance. But among adults ages 19 to 64, 11.0% aren’t insured, along with 5.4% of Americans under 19.
While 1.6 million non-citizens were enrolled in Medicare before recent restrictions, the specific mortality count for this group is not known in current data, but they generally experience lower mortality than U.S.-born citizens.
As of 2023–2024, there are approximately 21.6 to 22.4 million non-citizen residents in the United States, comprising roughly 7% of the total population. This group includes legal permanent residents, temporary visa holders, and undocumented immigrants. Overall, the foreign-born population reached a record high of over 51 million in 2024
Key Requirements for Immigrants to Get Medicare:
- Lawful Presence: Must be a lawful permanent resident (green card holder), or meet specific status requirements (e.g., refugee, asylee, or Cuban/Haitian entrant[3]).
- Residency: Must have lived in the U.S. for at least 5 continuous years immediately prior to enrolling.
- Age/Disability: Must be 65 or older, or under 65 with a qualifying disability (must meet Social Security disability requirements). Work History:
- 40+ Quarters (10 years): Qualify for premium-free Part A.
- Less than 40 Quarters: Can purchase Part A, but will pay premiums.
- Part B: Everyone pays a monthly premium for Part B, regardless of work history.
[1] Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) enrollment began in earnest in 2014, with over 8 million signing up for exchange plans in the first year. By the late 2010s (approx. 2017–2019), marketplace enrollment stabilized around 10–12 million annually, while Medicaid expansion added millions more to covered rolls, significantly dropping the national uninsured rate to roughly 9–10% by 2017.
[2] As of early 2026, just under 23 million people selected an Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plan for the new coverage year. This follows a record high in early 2025, where over 24 million consumers selected plans. Total enrollment, including Medicaid expansion, has exceeded 45 million in recent years with spending appraoching $1 Trillion.
[3] The HFRP (Haitian Family Relief Program) allowed Haitian families living in the U.S.A. to have relatives released from Haitian prisons and paroled in the U.S.A. The program was expanded by President Joe Biden to allow "sponsers" to have prisoners released from prisons in Columbia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Savadore, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras to be paroled in the U.S.A.