Affordable Care Act

Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Apr. 2014. The Consequences Of Obamacare [Electronic Resource] : Impact On Medicaid And State Health Care Reform : Hearing Before The Committee On Energy And Commerce, House Of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, First Session, March 1, 2011.

President Clinton had argued during his 1992 presidential campaign that health-care reform was needed. At the time, 37 million Americans were without health insurance. He also pointed to the fact that the United States was the only modernized democracy that did not provide universal health-care coverage for its citizens. On September 22, 1993, President Clinton gave his kick-off speech to Congress on his proposed health-care reform. The reform included a mandate for employers to provide health insurance to all employees.

Pipes, Sally. “Obama Will Ration Your Healthcare.” The Wall Street Journal. 30 Dec. 2008. Web. 07 Nov. 2013.

Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

The health care insurance is mandatory for all US citizens, and all legal residents in America. It is considered as an individual responsibility requirement, and those without this insurance are subject to a tax penalty of $750 per year up to a maximum of three times that amount ($2,250) per family. However, there are exemptions for financial hardships, incarcerated persons, religious objections, and undocumented immigrants. Mandatory health insurance is important, and should be applied in all states because, everyone gets ill and at one time, they have to visit a health care facility for medical services. In addition, it protects the health future of families, and protects people from unexpected high medical costs because they are covered.

Health Care Controversy Essay Obamacare. For those that don’t know what Obamacare is, its also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This act, or care is a health reform law that provides more Americans with good number of new rights, benefits and protection pertaining to their current health care and setting up a health insurance marketplace where citizens of America can buy federally standardized health insurance made by President Barack Obama in March of 2010. Since Obamacare came into full effect in 2010 it has changed the previous American medical system quite a lot. With the old medical system before Obamacare, a statistic of 20% of Americans all around the country lived below the poverty level and 37% of uninsured non-senior adults qualify for that demographic.

Web. 15 Mar. 2014. Bethany Anne Conway, Addressing the “Medical Malady”: Second-Level Agenda Setting and Public Approval of “Obamacare” Int J Public Opin Res (Winter 2013) 25 (4): 535-546 7 January. 2013 Peterson, Mark A.

The policy is controversial in terms of cost vs. benefits, but the benefits ultimately outweigh the costs. One section of the ACA requires every U.S. citizen to purchase a health insurance plan. During the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama promised that health insurance would become available for all people. The ACA is the legislative manifestation of this promise and was signed into law in 2010, largely becoming effective in the fall of 2013.The law was designed to change the system of healthcare provisions that has been in place in America for decades (Lieberman 45). Each of the various changes introduced by the ACA aims to achieve part of the main goal of providing 30 million middle-class Americans with health insurance (Dunn 47).

According to “FamiliesUSA”, three in ten adults were uninsured during 2012 and that is about 55 million people uninsured. (“New Results from National Health…”) The beginning of 2014 is when everyone in the country started being required health care. The Affordable Care Act has made the rule of 80/20 which means that insurance companies have to cover at least 80 percent of the cost for a patients care, and the rest of the 20 percent would go to profits and other costs. However, the Affordable Care Act can have higher costs for some people. Some people have had to pay more than their previous plans of private healthcare.

The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was eight long years in the making. After many bitter debates between the Republicans and Democrats, Congress passed the Act on February 4, 1993. President Clinton signed the measure into law the following day. The Act became effective on August 5, 1993. The Act required employers with fifty or more employees within a seventy-five mile radius to offer eligible employees up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave during a twelve month period for a variety of medical reasons.