In 2009, before Obamacare, a Harvard study estimated that 45,000 Americans died annually because they didn’t have health insurance. Obamacare has shrunk the ranks of the uninsured from 50 million then to less than 29 million now — meaning that 8.8 percent of the country’s 327 million people still run the risk of premature death. And lack of health insurance is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy, a uniquely American problem.

Conservatives advocate a society of equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. But when tens of thousands of our fellow citizens die annually because they lack health insurance, can we say that we’re providing equal opportunity?