Karger and Stoesz (2014) explained that social welfare policies are implemented in response to a social issue. Social welfare policy is designed to regulate benefits, services and eligibility criteria for the basic essential life needs such as food, housing, employment, education and health care. In response to an increasing need to provide health care insurance for uninsured Americans and access to health care for low and middle income populations the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was implemented. The comprehensive PPACA, often referred to as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare, consists of ten separate legislative Titles. This policy analysis paper focuses on the implementation of PPACA, specifically Title I, Quality, …show more content…
In terms of implementing social policy, diverse social, political and economic perspectives influences the concepts of the public good, moral authority and deservingness. Controversial and competitive ideologies created a complex history in the American social and political economy. In the 1930’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s liberal political views and advocacy for the public good established the first national welfare legislation with the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935. Political struggles over social welfare policy continue throughout each presidential administration. In 1994, the Clinton Administration proposed health care policy reform and it failed. Although many factors contributed to the failure, the political opposition focused on potential loss of benefits for people with good health and feared cost increases in the health care system.
In March 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The PPACA law marked a critical milestone in American social welfare policy. For more than two decades, the late Senator Ted Kennedy advocated securing affordable and equal health care for every
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According to Health Capital Consultants, a healthcare financial and economic consulting firm, there are four major stakeholders in the new health care reform. The classification of stakeholders include: consumers, employers, state government, healthcare providers, health insurance provides, and medical organizations such as the American Medical Associations. Social workers are included in the healthcare provider category. Other stakeholders’ include the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities sponsored by the HHS Office of Minority Affairs. In response to health care disparity, the agency created a National Stakeholders Strategy for Achieving Health Equity serves as a critical collaborative effort between the government, civil society, and private business to reduce health disparities and improve the health of the nation and its most vulnerable citizens.
Social Work Advocacy
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act continue to evolve. Social worker practice informs health care policymakers of clients’ social environment perspective. Operating from various social work practice levels, micro, macro and mezzo level perspectives, social workers may guide policy makers to ensure polices are written to eliminate discrimination and disparities. Social workers have a tradition of advocacy to ensure the best outcome for clients.
The health care organization with which I am familiar and involved is Kaiser Permanente where I work as an Emergency Room Registered Nurse and later promoted to management. Kaiser Permanente was founded in 1945, is the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plan, serving 9.1 million members, with headquarters in Oakland, California. At Kaiser Permanente, physicians are responsible for medical decisions, continuously developing and refining medical practices to ensure that care is delivered in the most effective manner possible. Kaiser Permanente combines a nonprofit insurance plan with its own hospitals and clinics, is the kind of holistic health system that President Obama’s health care law encourages. It still operates in a half-dozen states from Maryland to Hawaii and is looking to expand...
Just mention the word "Obamacare" and a heated debate will start right away. The legal name of Obamacare is "the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, PPACA" (Tate 1). The law has over 2500 pages and many have not read the entire law (Tate 12). Democrat Nancy Pelosi made an infamous remark back in 2010 stating "that Congress '[has] to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it'"...(Roff). This law was signed in March of 2010 and has a 54% disapproval rating among Americans today (Amadeo). The main goals of the law are to offer healthcare to all Americans, stop the rising costs of insurance, increase the number of "consumer benefits and protection", and solve several other healthcare concerns (Tate 13-15). What are some of the pros and cons of PPACA, and is this law good or bad for our country at this time?
Perspective Stakeholders in health and social care can be referred to a person, group or organization that has interest or concern in an organization. Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the organizations actions, objectives, and policies. Some examples of key stakeholders in health and social care are inspecting bodies, managers, employers, government and its agencies, owners of care services, owners of local businesses, suppliers, trade unions, service users, and the community which the organization serves. For example, a local health and well-being strategy may be developed by;
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.
The history of welfare goes all the way back to the roman empire when the first emperor gave citizens food that could not afford it. Then, social welfare was enlarged in china the song dynasty government supported many programs that made retirement homes, clinics and the welfare system for the poor. In 1601 the first welfare systems in europe that provided food for the poor. This system then moved its way into bigger countries such as germany and great britain. This expanded to the United States in the time of the Great Depression when president Roosevelt introduced the New Deal that focused on public spending projects instead of cash payments. The Social security act was amended in 1939.
Both my personal values and the social work values want to help people in whichever way that they can. I will encourage my clients to take advantage of The Affordable Care Act if they need to. Eric Lindberg wrote an article outlining the effects of The Affordable Care on the profession of social work. What he discovered is that it is valuable to the field, because: “the profession’s increasingly holistic focus on clients in the context of their families and communities, rather than simply in terms of their specific physical or mental ailments, is a major advantage for social work” (Lindberg, 2013). By opening the door to clients that are using the Affordable Care Act as a social worker, I will be allowing more clients to my services. The Affordable Care Act will make it possible for more people to seek out help and be able to have enough money for whatever help they may
Since the initiation of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, Americans have been put back in charge of their individual health care. Under this new law, a health insurance marketplace provides a haven for individuals without insurance to gain coverage. Just this year, citizens found out early whether they qualified for Medicare or the CHIP formally known as the Children’s Health Insurance Program. So much is to be learned about the Affordable Care act and this paper provides the roles of the different governmental branches, along with other important factors associated with this law.
There are stereotypes about social workers in the healthcare field that can hinder a social worker’s performance. Many people automatically assume that social workers are only to make referrals and locate specific services (Borst, 2010). While there are social workers who do make referrals as part of their work, there are all different kinds of social workers, ranging from research to policy change. Many assume that a social worker in the healthcare field is there to find a way for an outpatient to get home when this is simply not the case. Social workers in the healthcare field typically work on an interdisciplinary team, along with doctors and nurses. Social workers in these teams are typically the ones who look at the patient’s culture, look for client strengths, and look beyond the medical ...
As many have noticed, since President Donald Trump has been elected there has been word that the Affordable Care Act will be repealed and replaced. The Affordable Care Act has offered major progress for helping to offer all Americans health care. According to Christina M. Andrews, Julie S. Darnell, Timothy D. McBride, and Sarah Gehlert “The profession has much to contribute to the implementation of the ACA” (2013). Social workers have worked hard to find a plan that benefits Americans for the greater good and The Affordable Care Act has made that
Welfare has been a safety net for many Americans, when the alternative for them is going without food and shelter. Over the years, the government has provided income for the unemployed, food assistance for the hungry, and health care for the poor. The federal government in the nineteenth century started to provide minimal benefits for the poor. During the twentieth century the United States federal government established a more substantial welfare system to help Americans when they most needed it. In 1996, welfare reform occurred under President Bill Clinton and it significantly changed the structure of welfare. Social Security has gone through significant change from FDR’s signing of the program into law to President George W. Bush’s proposal of privatized accounts.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a federal that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 to systematically improve, reform, and structure the healthcare system. The ACA’s ultimate goal is to promote the health outcomes of an individual by reducing costs. Previously known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the ACA was established in order to increase the superiority, accessibility, and affordability of health insurance. President Obama has indicated the ACA is fully paid for and by staying under the original $900 billion dollar budget; it will be able to provide around 94% of Americans with coverage. In addition, the ACA has implemented that implemented that insurance companies can no longer deny c...
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 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed by President Barack Obama is a significant change of the American healthcare system since insurance plans programs like Medicare and Medicaid (“Introduction to”). As a result, “It is also one of the most hotly contested, publicly maligned, and politically divisive pieces of legislation the country has ever seen” (“Introduction to”). The Affordable Care Act should be changed because it grants the government too much control over the citizen’s healthcare or the lack of individual freedom to choose affordable health insurance.
Health care policies are plans that intended to determine or influence decisions or actions that will help to achieve specific health care goals. Most of these policies are actions taken by the government to improve the American health care system. The purpose of this essay is to describe the process of how a topic eventually becomes a policy and tie to how the Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) policy process. This essay will include the formulation stage, legislative stage, and implementation stage of a complete policy process.
In American society, the inequality of health care between the poor and the wealthy continues to rise. In the past years, many low income families have suffered from financial crisis due to health care bills. However, in 2017, during Obama’s presidency, a law was passed, Obamacare, by the government that allowed the poor and financially challenged families to have health care coverage. This eased the burden on low income families for a period of time between 2010 and 2017. Despite the initial purpose of Obamacare, the law on health care will probably change by 2019, which is already in the process of being taken away from Americans requiring them to buy their own health insurance.