It seems that today an average American citizen cannot go anywhere—school, work, or even Starbucks—without somehow overhearing a heated debate about ObamaCare. ObamaCare, formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is a landmark legislation and one of the hallmarks of President Obama’s time in office. Great, but what’s all the hype about?

The affordable Care Act was created to help fight the huge amount of health benefit costs in the nation. Despite this good intention, the law has caused division, mainly between Democrats and Republicans, in the country since it became a bill in 2010. The disagreement stems from a basic difference between the two parties: big government and small government.

ObamaCare creates a single healthcare market through the government in which all citizens in the country are required to enroll in.  If a person does not enroll, then he or she will be charged a fine. Democrats support this because they believe it takes out the costly insurance companies and provides average Americans with quality insurance.  Republicans oppose this because too much government action can undermine capitalism and the control of American citizens. Since both causes have equal merit, the country has been fighting like cats and dogs from the day ObamaCare was first discussed. Disclaimer: Not every Democrat is for ObamaCare, not every Republican against. These are generalizations that only further complicate the issue.

ObamaCare was so controversial that the law was taken before the Supreme Court in summer of 2012. The law passed as constitutional, however even the Supreme Court was divided. Of the total 9 justices on the bench, 5 were for, 4 against.

The law was even directly connected to issues such as the government shutdown. Part of the reason Congress couldn’t reach a decision on the topic then at hand, to raise the debt ceiling, was because Republicans were pushing to reform basic parts of the law. And of course, the Democrats were not about to allow that.

The Affordable Care is discussed today because it is being put into effect right now.  Any citizen 18 or older can enroll in ObamaCare at https://www.healthcare.gov/. In fact, people are not just asked to but supposed to enroll. And that’s where the problems comes along.

So far just over 100,000 people have enrolled in the program. While that seems like a lot, it’s not, especially when the intended number is over 500,000.  Also the wrong groups of people are enrolling. ObamaCare needs a lot of young people, age 18-35, to offset the initial costs and help carry the greater medical coverage of older citizens, who generally produce more health care costs. However, since young people tend to be healthy, few have enrolled.

Even those who have tried to enrolled are faced with problems. The national health care website was not built to support mass amounts of people, so the site constantly crashes.

Another problem, for some people considered an outrage, is that a person cannot keep his or her previous health care plan. While there are large numbers of people without access to proper health care, there are also those that were very satisfied with their benefits.  President Obama had said prior to the overhaul that these people would be able to keep their plans, however it seems this is not the case. It is this problem, more so than the others, that has put Obama under heat since it appears that he lied to the American people.

It is hard to say if ObamaCare will be part of everyday life ten years from now. What can be said is that this law caused division, arguments, and entire movements. Whatever happens, with Obama Care, Americans seem to be witnessing history in the making.