Vilsack Shows Support for Affordable Care Act

US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, says that he still supports the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and says that it benefits rural communities, like those in Wyoming.

Vilsack said in an interview, on Friday, that having health care coverage helps to support residents in rural areas.

"The fact that you have insurance coverage and the fact that you have people, now, who can afford to be paid for the services that they are providing, will no-doubt make it a little bit easier for people to stay and to be attracted to rural areas," Vilsack says.

The Affordable Care Act has come under fire by many politicians since its inception. In a speech to the United States Senate earlier this month, Wyoming Junior Senator John Barrasso called into question the actual numbers of people who were becoming insured for the first time under the new law.

"They're actually not getting new insurance or newly insured because of the law," said Barrasso during the early February speech.  "These are people that got cancellation letters, and then said 'uh-oh, I need to get insurance.'  So then they went to the website to buy something, often much more expensive requiring higher co-pays, higher deductibles."

Secretary Vilsack did go on to say that the best option is for people to form their own opinion, "I think that people have to make their own decisions.  That's why there's information on the healthcare.gov website, that will allow people to sort of analyze and  take a look at what they've got or what they would like to have and then determine where their budget will allow them to purchase a policy."

Sign up for the health-care-dot-gov website has a current deadline of March 31st.