Why We Have Never Called the Affordable Care Act "Obamacare"
Share on Facebook  Back in December, a few members of our
editorial team met over lunch to re-evaluate a few of our style
rules. These are the small language, grammar and punctuation
choices we mandate at Becker's. Few, if any, of these rules are
of great concern to the broader public, but as word nerds, we
discuss these decisions with utmost zeal.  We decided to make a
couple of changes over that lunch. We switched our style from
"payor" to "payer," a transition so subtle many readers may not
have even noticed. Healthcare was kept as one word. We refused
to adopt an Oxford comma, much to the dismay of our finance
editor.  And then one question on the agenda made us pause a
little longer: Should we start calling the healthcare reform law
the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare?    Becker's Hospital
Review has used only one term for the healthcare reform law
since day one: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
It's a mouthful, sure. But we de