The rollout of the Affordable Care Act has been unquestionably rocky , but the rush to judgment was over the top . Critics had their knives out even though little data are available on initial program enrollment and success . It 's much too early to declare the program either a failure or a success . Commentators who claim certainty need to be more humble in recognizing how little we know yet and more patient until we know more . All the focus on the website problems obscured those benefits the ACA has already created since its passage in 2010 . More than 3 million young adults have gained insurance coverage after family coverage was extended through age 26 . Since the law passed , closing Medicare 's `` doughnut hole '' allowed more than 7 million seniors and disabled people to save an average of $ 1,200 per person on prescription drugs . Consumers have saved about $ 5 billion over the past two years through requirements that insurers spend at least 80 % of the premium dollar on care for patients . And 71 million Americans with private insurance , as well as 25 million enrollees in Medicare , have gained coverage for at least one free preventive service . The years since the ACA was passed have been marked by the slowest three-year period of health care cost growth on record . The ACA does n't bear full credit for this slowdown , particularly given the weak economy . But the fact that the slowdown has persisted even as the economy has improved , and the fact that costs have grown more slowly even within the Medicare program whose enrollees are largely protected from economic shocks , suggests that the ACA is playing some role in this historic slowdown . The early success stories have been ignored in all the attention paid to the implementation problems . The premiums offered on the exchanges cost 16 % less than what the Congressional Budget Office projected them to be . This results in significantly lower costs to people and saves almost $ 200 billion in the federal government budget . Of course , the biggest changes to our system took place New Year 's Day . But it is simply too early to judge their impact . For example , when Massachusetts piloted the approach embodied in the ACA , we had very slow enrollment , with only 123 paying customers signing up the first month our subsidized insurance was available . There was a rush of enrollment right before the individual mandate kicked in , and ultimately over three years the program covered about two-thirds of the state 's uninsured citizens , leaving Massachusetts with a 3 % uninsured rate , the lowest in the nation . So , when will we be able to draw conclusions ? The first date to focus on is March 31 , when we can measure how many people enrolled in private and public insurance . Yet what matters more than total enrollment is the health mix of enrollees , relative to what insurers expected when they provided their lower-than-expected insurance bids . We wo n't really know about this health mix until the end of May , when insurers release their rates for 2015 . I expect that we will see only moderate increases in insurance rates at that point , as the federal government has created risk-sharing programs that should mitigate any `` rate shock '' to the market . But we wo n't know for sure until we see the rates . The next key time to check success will be the fall of 2014 , when the government releases its initial figures on the changes in insurance coverage . Although many have made bold claims about how this law will impact coverage by private and public insurance , we simply wo n't know until we see the data from our major household surveys of insurance coverage , available in the fall of 2014 . Ultimately , the projections of the Congressional Budget Office suggest that the ACA will not be fully implemented for three years , the amount of time it took to ramp up to full implementation in Massachusetts . So we wo n't be able to draw final and firm conclusions until late in 2016 . This timetable might seem long , but a change as large as the ACA takes time . We must be patient in evaluating that change . Once the data come in , and enough time for the law to be fully implemented has passed , we can truly draw conclusions about this signature episode in the history of U.S. social policy .
Jonathan Gruber : It 's way too early to declare the Affordable Care Act a failure or a success . Gruber : It 's improved health care since 2010 for young adults , those on Medicare . He says a crucial measure on March 31 will be health mix and number of enrollees . Gruber : It will take three years to fully implement , like Massachusetts ' law did .