Reviewing the Barack Obama Administration Part Two: Domestic Affairs

Healthcare: The first two years of Barack Obama's term were dominated by intense debate that resulted in landmark legislation: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Reforming the healthcare system has been a goal of Democratic presidents since the days of FDR, and many liberals considered the passage of the ACA a signature achievement for President Obama. However, since it's passage in March 2010, the ACA has hit many bumps on the road to becoming fully accepted as the law of the land. While most American recall the early problems with the healthcare.gov website, there are deeper issues that the ACA has faced in the past several years.

The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has heard, and will likely continue to hear, several challenges of the ACA since its passage and implementation. Democrats and the Obama administration won a major victory when the court determined that the "individual mandate" to buy insurance is not unconstitutional, as this enables insurance companies to be able to provide healthcare to lower income earners without the threat of going bankrupt. However, SCOTUS also decided that the federal government cannot force states to expand Medicare, a provision of the law designed to increase health coverage for low-income earners. As a result, many of the people that the law was intended to provide coverage for have seen little benefit.

Source: NASTAD

Despite the setbacks, the ACA has been effective in some respects. Subsidies provided under the ACA have helped some 10 million Americans acquire health insurance, causing the number of uninsured individuals to drop from an all time high of 18 percent. It has also improved the quality of healthcare while decreasing costs in a variety of ways: mandating doctors keep electronic medical records, improving preventative health coverage, and establishing the health insurance marketplace where people can compare the costs of various insurance plans. All the while, healthcare costs have been increasing at historically low levels. 

Source: New Republic

So while the ACA is far from the government-funded public-option health insurance system that some individuals on the left wanted, it is a major reform that will fundamentally change how Americans seek and receive healthcare.

The Economy: America's first African-American president came into office in the midst of the greatest financial crisis in the US since the Great Depression, and that timing greatly influenced several actions and perceptions of his presidency. Much of Obama's tenure was characterized by high unemployment and growing inequality, and while Obama isn't entirely to blame for a economic downturn that began before he took office, he presided over a meager recovery where many are still unemployed or underemployed.

Source: Pew Research Center

While the job numbers are troubling, the damning statistic of the Obama economy is the extreme rate of inequality that has continued to worsen. The gap between the rich and everyone else has widened to historic levels, and the wealth of middle-income and low-income families has SHRUNK since the end of the George W. Bush's second term. These numbers should give any Democrats who wish to make wealth redistribution a major component of their campaign message reason to worry. "Congress wouldn't let me do it" is an explanation that will fail to resonate with the majority of voters, no matter how true the assertion may be.

Source: Pew Research Center

While it is easy to focus on the effects of the Great Recession, fixing the conditions that allowed it to occur is a concern of many Americans. Obama did not focus on this (leading to much criticism from both sides of the aisle), leaving the complex task of diagnosing the structural economic problems to Congress. In hindsight, this may have been the best thing that Obama (who has never claimed to be an expert on financial markets) could have done.

First, let's review some recent history. The past few decades of American history have seen a growing housing bubble and as well as legislation that has deregulated the financial system. This created many key vulnerabilities in the private sector that allowed the crisis to occur, such as individuals and businesses being allowed to take on more debt than they could reasonably handle. More importantly, deregulation of the financial markets allowed the biggest banks in the country to monopolize a larger portion of the banking industry. 

Source: Econ Intersect

When an economic downturn hit, causing many to default on their loans, the big banks were unable to absorb the damage to their balance sheets and the government lacked the regulatory power to effectively manage the crisis. This resulted in the recession that cost many Americans their jobs, homes, and savings. In response, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank legislation, the most comprehensive financial reform since the Great Depression.  While the bill has many aspects, the most crucial aspects are ending "too big to fail" institutions and prohibiting cost-free bailouts for private industries. Obama signed the bill enthusiastically. 

It remains to be seen if Dodd-Frank goes far enough to fix the structural weaknesses in the American economy, but it certainly shores up some of the greater weaknesses that caused the global financial crisis of 2007-2008.

Privacy and Security: The Edward Snowden leak made data privacy a salient issue for Americans of diverse political leanings. While some on progressive left (like Russ Feingold) and libertarian right (like Ron Paul) have long warned about the dangers of letting the federal government surveil the public under provisions of the Patriot Act, the issue had been on the back burner for most Americans for sometime. But when a young NSA contractor left for Russia by way of Hong Kong, leaving a trail of government documents behind him, the situation changed entirely. 

Edward Snowden quickly became a household name when he released information on the federal government's domestic spying program. The leak also publicized USA surveillance activities against allies like Angela Merkel in Germany. This was extremely embarrassing for the White House, and the cost to rebuild trust relationships with the federal government will be high. However, this may also lead to a more transparent and less intrusive US federal government, which citizens of all stripes would prefer.