The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

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The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)

On March 23, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was officially signed into law. To some it is more commonly known as Obamacare. The goal of Obamacare is to give more Americans quality health insurance, and to reduce the growth in health care spending in the United States. This change to health care has led to a major impact on businesses. Some would argue good, some would argue bad. The changes and effects on the businesses will be discussed in the following essay.

First, let’s start off by talking about what Obamacare actually is. As stated previously the goal of Obamacare is to give more Americans quality health insurance, and to reduce the growth in health care spending in the United States. It comes with a number of new benefits, rights, and protections. For example, young adults can stay on parent’s plans until the age of 26. It also helps to prevent against discrimination according to things like gender and pre-existing medical conditions. Obamacare itself does not replace your current insurance, or Medicare, or Medicaid. It rather regulates health insurance from faulty practices.

Now, how does Obamacare affect businesses? To start we will take a look at the negatives. Some economists fear that over time it may inhibit employment and employment growth. It is not supposed to affect small businesses with less than 50 employees. However, what this means is that these small businesses could well be hesitant to expand over that magic number of 50. This hesitation could lead to the stunting of job growth that economists fear. An example of this was when Darden Restaurants, who own Red Lobster among other chains, announced they would start scaling back employment fr...

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...lions of Americans will now have access to affordable healthcare insurance. The number of uninsured Americans is expected to decrease due to cheaper policy rates. Also, young adults, up to the age of 26, can stay on their parent’s plans as previously stated earlier on. Obamacare also says that insurance companies also cannot discriminate against patients with pre-existing medical conditions which is a plus for those such people.

Now to get into the business aspect of how Obamacare affects businesses positively. Currently, insurance companies are required to pay for certain preventative services. These include but are not limited to mammograms, and colonoscopies. What this means is that the government may come in and intervene by saying that they must invest more money into preventative procedures regarding biotechnology or newer vaccines. How is this a positive?

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