Is Obamacare about controlling our lives?

Journalist Steven Brill has written a new book about our dysfunctional system of health care and it’s getting a lot of attention. In “America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System,” he describes the various struggles to implement the Affordable Care Act and dissects the ongoing opposition to the bill.

As a nurse, I’ve always supported the ACA as a way for more Americans to get needed health care. But many people, including many nurses, view Obamacare as a government intrusion into individual lives. I can see their point of view, but I believe it’s mistaken. The ACA does not allow government to interfere in our lives; it compels government to keep us as safe and healthy as possible.

For the record, the Affordable Care Act was based on “Romneycare,” the market-based health insurance reform that Republican Mitt Romney put in place when he was governor of Massachusetts. The ACA, like Romneycare, prohibits insurance companies from excluding patients due to preexisting conditions, requires all individuals to buy insurance (since otherwise only the sick would sign up for coverage and the system would quickly become insolvent) and offers subsidies to middle-class and low-income families to make higher-quality coverage affordable.

Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion

Read CNNOpinion’s Flipboard magazine

CNN