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Essay on health care reform in america
Essay on health care reform in america
Impact of ACA on health insurance
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According to Medicaid.gov (n/a) the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a health reform that was established to better health care security for all Americans, it includes expanding coverage, holds insurance companies accountable, lowers health care costs, guarantees more choices, and enhances the quality of care for all Americans. The ACA is to help provide quality health care at a low price for those who struggle financially. Many Americans cannot afford health coverage, or their jobs do not provide coverage, therefore causing them to live without insurance then being penalized at the end of the year for not being covered. The ACA allows more Americans to have easier access to health insurance, saving them from paying a penalty. The ACA provisions
The aim of affordable care act (ACA) was to extend health insurance coverage to around 15% of US population who lack it. These include people with no coverage from their employers and don’t have coverage by US health programs like Medicaid (Retrieved from, https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/affordable-care-act/). To achieve this, the law required all Americans to have health insurance which is a reason of controversy because, it was inappropriate intrusion of government into the massive health care industry and insult to personal liberty. To make health care more affordable subsidies are offered and the cost of the insurance was supposed to be reduced by bringing younger, healthier people to the health insurance system. This could be controversial, if older, sicker people who need the coverage most enter the market but younger group decline to do so. The insurance pool will be unbalanced and the cost of coverage will rise correspondingly.
The Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare” was designed to assure that all Americans regardless of health status have access to affordable health insurance. The Affordable Car Act was signed into law March 23, 2010. The primary goal of this act was to decrease barriers for obtaining health care coverage and allow Americans to access needed health care services (Affordable Care Act Summary, n.d). After the legislation is fully implemented in 2014, all Americans will be required to have health insurance through their employer, a public program such as Medicaid and/or Medicare or by purchasing insurance through the health insurance marketplace exchange (Affordable Care Act Summary, n.d). I will identify three parts of The Affordable Care Act that I believe are important. First, I will talk about the requirement that insurance companies are no longer able to deny coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. Secondly, I will explain why physician payments are being shifted to value over volume. Lastly, I will discuss Medicaid expansion and why some states are not expanding at all.
The individual mandate and the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare”, is the idea that citizens should be required to have health insurance or otherwise pay a certain penalty. The Affordable Care Act essentially is the ability for all Americans to be able to afford health insurance. “One goal of the ACA, often referred to as the Affordable Care Act…is to bring down the costs of health care and make it available to more people.” (Will the Affordable Care Act improve health care in the United States?). The ACA was signed into law in March 2010 and currently ongoing. Although the Affordable Care Act does potentially have some positive effects to it, like bringing affordable health insurance to uninsured Americans; the Act does also have
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.
The Affordable Care Act is working to make health care more affordable, accessible and of a higher quality, for families, seniors, businesses, and taxpayers alike. This includes previously uninsured Americans, and Americans who had insurance that didn’t provide them with adequate coverage and security. I have seen firsthand how the cost of my insurance payment has gone down and the cost of my MS treatment and medicines is covered under my health insurance. Also, with the Affordable Care Act, there are more preventative programs that are offered.
The Affordable Care Act was a critical step towards universal healthcare. Twenty-nine million Americans are still without health care coverage. Expanding the accessibility to the ACA and reducing the cost is necessary. The U.S. spends more on health care per person than any other advanced nation in the world. Reducing the complexity of the tax credit program is the first step to improving the ACA. The premium tax credit is a refundable tax credit designed to help eligible individuals and families with low or moderate income afford health insurance purchased through the Health Insurance Marketplace. There are requirements made for the Marketplace by the Department of Health and Human Services that have to do with whether you are eligible or not
The Affordable Care Act benefits to reconstruct the healthcare system by giving more Americans access to superiority, reasonable health insurance and supports to curtail the growth of healthcare spending in the U.S. People with health insurance will have access to a number of new benefits, privileges, and defenses which ensure that they can get treatment when they need it. This helps over 32 million Americans afford health care who could not get it before. It not only helps the consumers but also our budget and economy on a more stable path by reducing the discrepancy by more than $100 billion over the next ten years. Since there are millions of people with health insurance, it will also increase the demand of healthcare provider as more jobs will be open which will help our economy (Mowrey, 2013).
Prior to the passing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), some employees were receiving plans that had poor coverage or had other barriers to accessing care, which affected individual who have a costly, chronic health conditions by having large bills and uncovered medical care. When the ACA passed in 2010, there were a few changes that impacted employee based insurance. Some of the changes include preventive services without cost sharing, pre-existing conditions exclusions, dependent coverage to age 26, annual out of pocket limit and prohibition on annual and lifetime limits. The ACA provided health plans to cover recommended preventive services without cost sharing. Individuals are able to receive screenings, immunizations and annual check ups
Implemented (along with Medicare) as a part of the Social Security Amendments of 1965, Medicaid’s original purpose was to improve the health of the working poor who might otherwise go without medical care for themselves and their families. Medicaid also assisted low income seniors with cautionary provisions that paid for the costs of nursing facility care and other medical expenses such as premiums and copayments that were not covered through Medicare. Eligibility for Medicaid is usually based on the family’s or individual’s income and assets. When the ACA came into effect in 2010, it began to work with the states to develop a plan to better coordinate the two ...
The ACA expanded Medicare/ Medicaid, strengthened employer based care, and included an individual mandate. Before the ACA there were 32 million people uninsured and “approximately half, or 16 million, will gain coverage through an expansion of Medicaid” (Barr, 2011, p. 292). To improve the cost of care the ACA required employers with more the 50 employees to offer plans and individuals would have to purchase plans from the government. “ACA does not address directly the issue of disparities in access of care based on a patient’s race or ethnicity, it does impose on providers the responsibility for collecting data on the race or ethnicity, primary language, disability status, and similar demographic characteristics of patients cared for” (Barr, 2011, p. 293). The ACA strives to give health coverage to all but the power still lies in the private sector.
If the United States had unlimited funds, the appropriate response to such a high number of mentally ill Americans should naturally be to provide universal coverage that doesn’t discriminate between healthcare and mental healthcare. The United States doesn’t have unlimited funds to provide universal healthcare at this point, but the country does have the ability to stop coverage discrimination. A quarter of the 15.7 million Americans who received mental health care listed themselves as the main payer for the services, according to one survey that looked at those services from 2005 to 2009. 3 Separate research from the same agency found 45 percent of those not receiving mental health care listing cost as a barrier.3 President Obama and the advisors who helped construct The Affordable Care Act recognized the problem that confronts the mentally ill. Mental healthcare had to be more affordable and different measures had to be taken to help patients recover. Although The Affordable Care Act doesn’t provide mentally ill patients will universal coverage, the act has made substantial changes to the options available to them.
The Affordable Care Act, a healthcare coverage law signed by President Barack Obama in 2010, was created to help Americans have the opportunity to affordable health benefits.
Health insurance, too many American citizens, is not an option. However, some citizens find it unnecessary. Working in the health care field, I witness the effects of uninsured patients on medical offices. Too often, I see a “self-pay” patient receive care from their doctor and then fail to pay for it. Altogether, their refusal to pay leaves the office at a loss of money and calls for patients to pay extra in covering for the cost of the care the uninsured patient received. One office visit does not seem like too big of an expense, but multiple patients failing to pay for the care they receive adds up. Imagine the hospital bills that patients fail to pay; health services in a hospital are double, sometimes triple, in price at a hospital. It is unfair that paying patients are responsible for covering these unpaid services. Luckily, the Affordable Care Act was passed on March 23, 2010, otherwise known as Obamacare. Obamacare is necessary in America because it calls for all citizens to be health insured, no worrying about pre-existing conditions, and free benefits for men and women’s health.
Therefore, the Affordable Care Act increased access to healthcare. The group that benefited the most was the individuals with pre-existing conditions. Prior to Affordable Care Act, insurance companies had the right to deny the application of those with pre-existing condition like asthma and diabetes. However, with the ACA, insurance companies cannot deny their application and they can’t increase their premium. Another group that had advantages of this new act are the poor people. People who are up to 138% of poverty level or the individuals that make less than $15,854 a year will be eligible for
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,