Obamacare is still alive, but it's wounded.
Through a series of steps taken over the last year by the Trump regime and congressional Republicans, they've successfully swelled the ranks of the uninsured.
Over 3 million people lost their coverage in 2017 according to Gallup and that's the largest increase in 10 years.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The percentage of U.S. adults without health insurance was essentially unchanged in the fourth quarter of 2017, at 12.2%, but it is up 1.3 percentage points from the record low of 10.9% found in the last quarter of 2016. The 1.3-point increase in the uninsured rate during 2017 is the largest single-year increase Gallup and Sharecare have measured since beginning to track the rate in 2008, including the period before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect. That 1.3 point increase represents an estimated 3.2 million Americans who entered the ranks of the uninsured in 2017.
In other words, the last time this many Americans lost their coverage was during the 2008 financial crisis. It's also the first increase in the number of uninsured since Obamacare took full effect.
It's notable that this increase began before Republicans voted to eliminate the individual mandate. We should expect to see an even larger number of people lose their coverage in 2018 when the full implications of the GOP tax cut bill become clear.