President Barack Obama signs the  Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty  Images

By Robin Marty

Obamacare is a disaster! It’s the worst thing to happen to the country since slavery! It  will rape the future of our young people!  It will cause wives to leave husbands and husbands to marry their dogs!  OK, I made up the dog part – but all the others are, sadly, 100 percent real  statements made by right-wing extremists in the last few weeks.

But despite the hand-wringing and rumor-mongering, and despite some gleefully reported website glitches, around 45,000 people across the country have already  enrolled in the insurance program set up by the Affordable Care Act, with the  actual enrollment deadline still almost two months away.

For those who have enrolled, many of whom were previously uninsured or were  hit with massive co-pays, Obamacare is a total success. Here are just a few of  their stories:

Phil Sherburne and Leia Bell This Utah family will pay  just $123 a month to cover their family of five, despite a shoulder issue that  had left Sherburne unable to get insurance before the Affordable Care Act went  into effect. According to Sherburne (who is also a small business owner), the  multiple efforts it took to get onto the federal exchange website were well  worth it. “It’s a great deal. I’m thrilled to have coverage, period,” he said to  the Salt Lake Tribune. “Once I got onto the site it took  about an hour, start to finish.”

Kendall  Brown This Oklahoma City resident, who suffers from Crohn’s Disease, has  already benefited once from the Affordable Care Act, which allowed her to stay  on her parents’ health insurance through age 26. After that, she was unable to  find affordable insurance – forcing her to forgo treatment because she couldn’t  afford the out-of-pocket expenses.  She has now been able to enroll in the  exchange, despite the pre-existing condition that previously caused her to be  denied by every insurance company. In an open letter to Congress, Brown wrote, “[I]f you defund  Obamacare, or delay it even for one year, as you are debating today, then this  will be my last letter to you. I will be dead before my 27th birthday.”

Rakesh Rikhi For Rikhi, who owns a Bay Area auto-repair  shop, the $500 a month that he is saving when it comes to covering his family  through the state exchange will mean more money to invest in his small business.  Even better, that investment will likely assist his employees in purchasing  their own health insurance. “Now that he knows his potential saving, Rikhi says  he can’t wait to sign up and looks forward to feeling relief from the financial  pain of skyrocketing insurance costs,” reports the local NBC affiliate.

Butch Matthews If Rikhi’s savings sound good, then  Matthews’ return must be twice as impressive. The self-avowed Arkansas  Republican and retiree admits he became an Obamacare convert after learning he  will save $13,000 a year under a new plan that has no monthly premiums. “I would  tell [people badmouthing Obamacare] to learn more about it before they start  talking bad about it,” he told ThinkProgress. “Be more informed, get more information, take  your time and study and not just go by just what you hear on one side or the  other. Actually check the facts on it.”

Andrew Stryker A Los Angeles freelancer who has been on  COBRA health insurance so he won’t have any gap in coverage, Stryker expects his  monthly premiums to dip to $300 a month from the current $600. “Obviously three  hours is a long time to wait, but it will save me over $6,000,” he told Sarah Kliff at The Washington Post. “For that, I  would have waited all day.”

Katie  Klabusich Klabusich, a self-employed writer and activist, says she had  been plagued by a chronic sinus infection that she was unable to treat due to  her previous insurance plan.  “There were periods in my 20’s where my  health insurance cost more than my rent,” she wrote in a blog post, where she went on to praise her  new, low monthly premium under the low-deductible health care plan she purchased  on the New York state exchange, which will allow her to finally treat a myriad  of medical issues she’d mostly tried to ignore. “IN TEN WEEKS . . . I get to see  a doctor and start whatever course of treatment is the best option, not the one  I can attempt to afford. That is my new reality. Thank you, ACA,” Klabusich  wrote.

These people, some with bigger reasons to be thankful than others, join many others who are celebrating finally becoming  insured after being turned down for having cancer, arthritis, endometriosis,  blindness, amputation or other devastating illnesses for which having affordable  health care isn’t just a convenience, but a matter of survival.

In fact, there are large numbers of people that will benefit from Obamacare,  from those with increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer who  will now get plans that make it mandatory to allow preventive genetic testing,  to working-class and middle-class adults and children who will now be covered  under an expansion of Medicaid, providing even more uninsured with a  new chance to finally get coverage. To the program’s defenders, it’s clear that  these successes should more than outweigh a few frozen screens during the  application process.

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