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Some Clarity on Health Reform

Confusion about health care reform is pretty much a fact of political life these days. If you need proof, just consider the most recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, in which 22 percent of respondents said they believed the Affordable Care Act had been repealed and another 26 percent said they weren't sure.

Maybe those respondents were thinking of the House vote to repeal. Maybe they were thinking of one of the court decisions striking down the law. Whatever. When only half the country knows for sure that the Affordable Care Act is still in place, it's safe to assume an even lower proportion understands what the law would actually do, let alone how it would affect them personally.

The White House has tried and, of late, done a better job of explaining the law's benefits. Organizations like Kaiser have been doing heroic work along these lines for some time. But it's obviously not enough, so I'm glad to see yet another effort at clarification, this one from a coalition of provider groups. You'll find it at HealthCareandYou.org and, as the URL suggests, it tries to personalize its information by letting users click through menu options on home state and age. 

The groups behind this effort, from the AARP to the American College of Physicians, all supported the Affordable Care Act. I doubt my friends at the Cato Institute will find the site to their liking. But the information, as far as I can tell, is accurate. These days, that's good enough.