Pros And Cons Of The Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted in 2010 and was designed to insure millions of people, who did not have health insurance, reduce out-of-pocket expenses for families and reduce costs for small businesses. In essences, when enrollment opens in 2013, the ACA law will target the 42 million Americans that according to a Census Bureau Survey are uninsured (Klein, 2014). Indeed, Obama Care from a utilitarian point of view is a huge improvement in medical services to a larger proportion of the population, that prior to this law did not have insurance available to them, including improved availability of health care services and reigning in out of control insurance companies.
Controversially, the United States is one of the few countries

With that in mind, the insurance crisis affects the entire community and according to Thomas May, “Already skyrocketing costs are forcing employers to adjust health insurance benefits, with many resorting to plans that offer fewer benefits, less choices, and higher deductibles and copays” (May, 2007). For instance, in the last 10 years insurance premiums have increased 80 percent, employees have had an astonishing 89 percent increase in their contribution to health insurance, all in the guise of trying to reduce misuse of services and control costs (Bisera, C). As a result, this trend is going to leave many at an increased risk of losing their insurance coverage because small businesses will not be able to afford the increased premiums, in addition to that, the “working poor” are the fastest growing uninsured population (May,

In addition, hard working people, many small business owners do not qualify for government insurance, such as Medicaid and have huge cost shares with health exchange insurances offered through the ACA. Thus, these very same people are afraid of incurring a large debt that will hurt their credit and future livelihood (Kuntze, 2008). Comparatively, an act utilitarian would see the above example based on a case by case situation while many have benefited from the ACA, others have still found themselves in a financial predicament, not really benefiting from the new health care law (Hartwig,