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It was the signature policy proposal of the nation's first Black president, a sweeping overhaul of the healthcare system that broke a decades-long stalemate and brought health coverage to nearly 20 million previously uninsured adults. ... President Barack Obama... 2009. "Our collective failure to meet this challenge, year after year, de-cade after decade, has led us to a breaking point." When the Affordable Care Act (ACA)-Obamacare, as it quickly became known-was signed into law, Vice President Joe Biden was heard leaning over to Obama and whispering, "This is a big fucking deal." ... The United States is the only high-income nation that does not guarantee some form of healthcare to all of its citizens. Medicine here is a commodity, and access to it depends on a suite of factors, including age, income level, employment status, geographic region, and-to an alarming and undeniable extent-race. African and Latino Americans have the highest uninsured rates in the country and, as a result, shoulder a disproportionate burden of the