--- title: Obamacare: Economic Boon? description: Duncan Black makes an argument that liberals haven't emphasized nearly enough about the Affordable Care Act: that it could well be a shot in the... canonical: https://time.com/8526/obamacare-economic-boon/ author: Joe Klein article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-02-13T13:10:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T06:26:13.429Z article:section: Politics og:title: Obamacare: Economic Boon? og:description: Duncan Black makes an argument that liberals haven't emphasized nearly enough about the Affordable Care Act: that it could well be a shot in the... og:url: https://time.com/8526/obamacare-economic-boon/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdcc29dd61337c347/698682da810bbb09a3c902b2/barack-obama-obamacare.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: President Barack Obama at the White House on February 12, 2014. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Obamacare: Economic Boon? twitter:description: Duncan Black makes an argument that liberals haven't emphasized nearly enough about the Affordable Care Act: that it could well be a shot in the... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdcc29dd61337c347/698682da810bbb09a3c902b2/barack-obama-obamacare.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Obamacare: Economic Boon? > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Joe Klein](https://time.com/author/joe-klein/) ## Joe Klein Feb 13, 2014 1:10 PM UTC  President Barack Obama at the White House on February 12, 2014. President Barack Obama at the White House on February 12, 2014. Kevin Lamarque—Reuters by [Joe Klein](https://time.com/author/joe-klein/) ## Joe Klein Feb 13, 2014 1:10 PM UTC Duncan Black makes an [argument](http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/02/11/cbo-obamacare-health-care-jobs-column/5372293/) that liberals haven’t emphasized nearly enough about the Affordable Care Act: that it could well be a shot in the arm for the economy. It is, in truth, a conservative argument–a freedom argument. I’ve always loved the logic of it. There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people with clever ideas for starting businesses who are trapped in their current jobs because of the need to provide health insurance for their families. These are the potential Wright brothers, the middle managers who see a better, more efficient way to process a product, the tinkerers who come up with a new valve, the designers who come up with a snazzzy new pattern. The ad hoc employer-based American health care system has been an impediment to such people, especially for those who have family members with pre-existing conditions. And that’s why I immediately dismissed, out of hand, the CBO report that said 2 million jobs would be “lost” under Obamacare (the CBO meant, of course, that an estimated 2 million people would choose to leave their jobs). The problem is, there is no way to anticipate or calculate the number of jobs that will be created by newly liberated entrepreneurs–what if there’s a FedEx or a Sam Adams in the mix? And so, it is good to know that there is mildly happy news today on the Obamacare front–1.1 million new signups in February, including a healthy number of young people. The overall fate of the law remains unclear, of course. As Michael Shear and Reed Abelson report in the Times: --- > “” --- The good news is that if the law is imperfect, as it undoubtedly will be in some aspects, it can be modified. Other countries have managed to provide national health insurance-_\-and not neceessarily socialized medicine–_without too much of a fuss. In the end, I hope that we’ll eventually move to a system like the Wyden-Bennett proposal, which would _entirely_ remove the health insurance burden from American corporations, allowing them to compete in the global market on the same basis as companies in other advanced economies do. Conservatives call this sort of system “premium support”–vouchers to buy health insurance are given (by the government) according to need; liberals call this system…single-payer. There will be an argument about how generous the benefits will be, but that’s a benign necessity–democracy needs to work such things out in public view. We are, perhaps, light years away from the adjustments that will create a more perfect health insurance system. The Affordable Care Act is a nice place to start. I wish it had been implemented better; I hope it will be modified and simplified. Most of all, I hope that saner heads will prevail, that the nonsense passing for talking points (especially from the wingers) will abate and things like [this piece of unprocessed inanity ](http://nypost.com/2014/02/11/no-one-can-make-obamacare-work/)will have no place in the public debate. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/8526/obamacare-economic-boon/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/8526/obamacare-economic-boon/"},"headline":"Obamacare: Economic Boon?","datePublished":"2014-02-13T13:10:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T06:26:13.429Z","description":"Duncan Black makes an argument that liberals haven't emphasized nearly enough about the Affordable Care Act: that it could well be a shot in the...","url":"https://time.com/8526/obamacare-economic-boon/","keywords":["Health Care","Obamacare","Joe Klein"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdcc29dd61337c347/698682da810bbb09a3c902b2/barack-obama-obamacare.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Joe Klein","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/joe-klein/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdcc29dd61337c347/698682da810bbb09a3c902b2/barack-obama-obamacare.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Barack Obama at the White House on February 12, 2014.","caption":"President Barack Obama at the White House on February 12, 2014.","creditText":"Kevin Lamarque—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/health-care/","name":"Health Care"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/8526/obamacare-economic-boon/","name":"Obamacare: Economic Boon?"}}]}] ```