More than 250,000 have picked insurance plans through the marketplace, and nearly 400,000 gained insurance through the expansion in Medicaid eligibility.
But the law’s implementation hasn’t always gone smoothly, including the botched launch of the healthcare.gov website in late 2013. Some of its revenue-raising provisions, including a tax on medical devices, have also been a source of concern over whether they will dampen medical innovations in the long-term.
Gov. Chris Christie has tried to walk a line: ensuring that some provisions of the law, like Medicaid expansion, will benefit the state, while assuring ACA critics that he shares their concern about a larger government role in healthcare. Democratic advocates of the ACA have countered that his decision to veto a state-based expansion cost the state many millions of dollars in federal funds.
