Dr. Ram Raju, CEO Cook County Health & Hospitals joins Thom Hartmann. Residents of Cook County, Illinois are about to see some significant new benefts thanks to President Obama and the Affordable Care Act. Starting this week – more than 115,000 residents of the county will receive letters informing them of how to enroll in the county’s new public healthcare program. That program was made possible thanks to Obamacare – which expands traditional Medicaid in participating states to allow residents under 65-years-old and with incomes up to 133% of the poverty level – to receive government healthcare. The law officially kicks in in 2014 – but Cook County obtained a waiver from the federal government to start up their own program more than a year earlier.