Healthcare has been a topic of discussion with the majority of the country. Issues with insurance coverage, rising costs, limited options to gain coverage, and the quality of healthcare have become concerns for law makers, healthcare providers and the general public. Some of those concerns were alleviated with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, but new concerns have developed with problems that have occurred in the implementation of the new law. The main concerns of the country are if the Affordable Care Act will be able to overcome the issues that plagued the old healthcare system, the cost of the program, and how will the new law affect the quality of the health delivery system. In 2010, President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act in order to bring reform to the current healthcare system. The law was designed to provide healthcare coverage for people that did not have access to healthcare, improve the quality of the types of healthcare provided, and contain costs (HHS, 2014). Some of the features of the law are: • Protection against losing or acquiring healthcare coverage due to a pre-existing medical condition. • End of limitations on coverage during a patient’s life time. • Allows children to be on their parent’s healthcare coverage to the age of twenty-six. • Preventative care is complimentary to the patient. • Limits the amount of administrative costs to be passed to the insured. • Requires healthcare insurance companies to justify rate increases (HHS, 2014). By addressing some of the negative factors of the current healthcare system, the Affordable Care Act attempts to reform the broken healthcare system. Access The Affordable Care Act promises the public access to health coverage. Many of the people who d... ... middle of paper ... ...nities in Criminal Justice, Homelessness, and Behavioral Health With the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. American Journal Of Public Health, 103(S2), e25-e29. doi:10.2105/ AJPH.2013.301497 Fontenot, S. (2013). Understanding the Affordable Care Act Bit by Bit: Will Transparency and Sunshine Shrink Costs?. Physician Executive, 39(5), 86-91. Francis, T. (2013). The Affordable Care Act: An Annotated Timeline. Physician Executive, 39(6), 64-67. Ghosh, C. (2013). Affordable Care Act: Strategies to Tame the Future. Physician Executive, 39(6), 68-70. Shay, P. D., & Mick, S. S. (2013). Post-Acute Care and Vertical Integration After the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Journal Of Healthcare Management, 58(1), 15-27. United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). (2014). About the law. Retrieved from http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/rights/
One of the most controversial topics in the United States in recent years has been the route which should be undertaken in overhauling the healthcare system for the millions of Americans who are currently uninsured. It is important to note that the goal of the Affordable Care Act is to make healthcare affordable; it provides low-cost, government-subsidized insurance options through the State Health Insurance Marketplace (Amadeo 1). Our current president, Barack Obama, made it one of his goals to bring healthcare to all Americans through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. This plan, which has been termed “Obamacare”, has come under scrutiny from many Americans, but has also received a large amount of support in turn for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons include a decrease in insurance discrimination on the basis of health or gender and affordable healthcare coverage for the millions of uninsured. The opposition to this act has cited increased costs and debt accumulation, a reduction in employer healthcare coverage options, as well as a penalization of those already using private healthcare insurance.
For decades, one of the many externalities that the government is trying to solve is the rising costs of healthcare. "Rising healthcare costs have hurt American competitiveness, forced too many families into bankruptcy to get their families the care they need, and driven up our nation's long-term deficit" ("Deficit-Reducing Healthcare Reform," 2014). The United States national government plays a major role in organizing, overseeing, financing, and more so than ever delivering health care (Jaffe, 2009). Though the government does not provide healthcare directly, it serves as a financing agent for publicly funded healthcare programs through the taxation of citizens. The total share of the national publicly funded health spending by various governments amounts to 4 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, GDP (Jaffe, 2009). By 2019, government spending on Medicare and Medicaid is expected to rise to 6 percent and 12 percent by 2050 (Jaffe, 2009). The percentages, documented from the Health Policy Brief (2009) by Jaffe, are from Medicare and Medicaid alone. The rapid rates are not due to increase of enrollment but growth in per capita costs for providing healthcare, especially via Medicare.
Whether we are in favor or opposed to the Affordable Care Act, it is important that we consider how it affects us and the world surrounding us. First of all, I find useful to mention what the Affordable Care Act (also known as ObamaCare) is and how it differs from any other healthcare acts. The Affordable Care Act provides Americans with health security by putting in place health insurance reforms that are supposed to expand coverage, hold insurance companies accountable, guarantee more choices to choose from, lower healthcare costs, and eventually enhance the quality of care for all Americans. It differs from other healthcare insurances because patients with pre-existing conditions can now be eligible to receive treatment and prevention of further illness.
Reese, Philip. Public Agenda Foundation. The Health Care Crisis: Containing Costs, Expanding Coverage. New York: McGraw, 2002.
ObamaCare, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is a Health care reform law that was signed on March 23, 2010. ObamaCare’s goal is to provide more Americans with affordable health care insurance. ObamaCare also hopes to improve the quality of healthcare and health insurance in America, regulate the healthcare industry, and reduce the cost of healthcare in the United States. ObamaCare is made up of ten titles; I: Quality, Affordable Healthcare for all United State Citizens, II: The Role of Public Programs, III: Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Healthcare, IV: Prevention of Chronic Disease and Improving Public Health, V: Healthcare Workforce, VI: Transparency and Program Integrity, VII: Improving Access to Innovative Medical Therapies, VIII: Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS Act), IX: Revenue Provisions, and X: Reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.
The Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, is a new health policy created by the American federal government. Its purpose is to make healthcare more affordable and friendly for the people. Unfortunately in some way that does not prove to be the case. It is becoming apparent that Obama may have made some misleading statements to help get the ACA put into action. The ACA is sprinkled with many flaws that call for a reform such as people’s current plans being terminated, high costs, and at minimum some people’s hours being cut by their employers.
The Healthcare Reforms Act 2010 or the Affordable Care Act introduces the universal form of health care. The ACA seeks to reduce healthcare costs and allow people to be more engaged in their own health care. The ACA intends to make healthcare more affordable and increase access of health care by expanding government’s Medicaid program to the financially disadvantaged, such as the low income earners, disabled people and people over 65 years of age (Arvantes, 2010).
“Medicare and the New Health Care Law — What it Means for You.” (2010). Medicare Publications, http://www.medicare.gov/Publications/Pubs/pdf/11467.pdf
The Obama Care, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has a potential to improve health care. This law made health care more accessible to citizens because it inhibits insurers to deny insurance, institutes the individual and employer mandate, established lower standards for health plans, and provides an affordable health coverage to low income families and individuals. Furthermore, to foster a higher quality health care delivery system, the new law created an amendment to the Medicare payment program (Martin, 2015). However, the lawmakers must increase the citizens’ awareness of the law and encourage the other states not participating in the program.
The main advantage of the Affordable Care Act is that it lowers health care costs overall by making insurance affordable for more people. First, it wi...
The presented article reviewed the impact that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has had on the US healthcare system following it being signed by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. As described in the article, much of the full effect of the ACA is yet to be determined due to its existence being only five years. However, within this time frame the ACA has greatly modified two key factors of the healthcare system; the expansion in coverage of health insurance and a reform in the delivery system of healthcare. Reform in these two areas came largely in part due to the federal government providing subsidies which allowed for 87% of the 11.7 million qualifying Americans to receive coverage, and secondly because of individual states being allowed to expand their Medicaid programs (Blumenthal, Abrams & Nuzum, 2015). The effects of the ACA on this 87%, have been that many were pleased with their coverage and report being
In March 2010, under the Obama administration, the United States enacted major health-care reform. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 expands coverage to the majority of uninsured Americans, through: (a) subsidies aimed at lower-income individuals and families to purchase coverage, (b) a mandate that most Americans obtain insurance or face a penalty,
In March 2010, the future of health care system in United States changed when The Affordable Care Act (ACA) (most popularly known as Obama Care) was approved. The law expands quality Health Care to more than ten million of previously uninsured people in United States. The Health Care law opens the door for access to care, more affordable to the cost of illness and the possibilities to get the care needed for citizens to be healthy.
According to Roy, 2013 the issues of providing the affordable care act will unite both the supporters and offenders of the public policy, but in this current situation where the input costs are rising, it will become impossible for government in managing the public policy related to affordable health care. In order to provide affordable health care, majority of the US government has tried out different policies time to time, but unable to get success in realizing the actual policy goals. By providing the affordable health care to majority of the people who requires more amount as controlling the input cost is not possible (AAMC, 2013). Lack of doctors is one of the primary issue in providing high quality health care to the citizens especially those who are financially poor. The Supreme Court of the country passed an Act related to Health insurance as all should have Health Insurance to all the country people by the year 2014, but the at the same time government is concerned about constitutionality of these act (NYTimes, 2013).
ObamaCare Summary: A Summary of Obama's Health Care Reform. n.d. Web. 18 03 2014. .