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Rising cost of medical services
Rising cost of medical services
The impact of the Affordable Care Act on healthcare
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The Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, is a new health policy created by the American federal government. Its purpose is to make healthcare more affordable and friendly for the people. Unfortunately in some way that does not prove to be the case. It is becoming apparent that Obama may have made some misleading statements to help get the ACA put into action. The ACA is sprinkled with many flaws that call for a reform such as people’s current plans being terminated, high costs, and at minimum some people’s hours being cut by their employers. One reason health care needs reform is people’s current plans being terminated. The ACA regulates and puts pressure on insurance agencies to offer more services to their customers, and …show more content…
“From the very beginning…. Obama’s message was not that the law would result in higher premiums, but better coverage. It was that the law would lower premiums, end of story” (Roy). Yet another promise has found itself broken after the ACA came into the sunlight of reality. “His $1 trillion in tax increases [hit] the middle class hard…” Mitt Romney said, “… in the health care system I envision, costs will be brought under control not because a board of bureaucrats decrees it but because everyone- providers, insurers, and patients –has incentives to do it” Unfortunately, that isn’t how it is. The nation is being forced into healthcare or being penalized for not joining the masses, because this plan will only work if there’s enough healthy people paying their newly doubled premiums regularly to help offset the expenses the unhealthy have right of the bat. “Back when Obamacare was being debated in Congress, Democrats claimed that it was right-wing nonsense that premiums would go up under Obamacare” (Roy). It’s now obvious that right-wing was headed in the right direction, and the middle class was …show more content…
However, the reason a lot of these insurance companies are not popular among the general public is because they are new to the insurance game and are often unable to handle processing claims that have become second nature to the giants of the insurance industry. Opponents could also claim the ACA’s out of pocket maximum helps people not get drowned in debt. Sure, maybe the individuals themselves aren’t directly in debt and being spammed with outrageous hospital bills. However, the part of their bills that count toward their out of pocket maximum are sometimes unclear. “Even though things are a lot simpler now, depending on your plan not all services are going to be covered 100% and not all services are always going to count toward your out-of-pocket maximum. Double check that your health plan isn’t cutting any of the corners” (Out-of-Pocket) Opponents may also say that the ACA lowers premiums, but that 2008 statement has become increasingly known as a lie. Obama spent 2008 telling the American people throughout his campaign insurance would be reduced “up to”, “on average”, and “typically” $2,500 “per family, per year”. That turned out to be false and “by some estimates, the average rates in the individual market have increased nearly 25 percent compared to what they would have been without Obamacare, and have increased measurably in 45
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.
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.
There is an ongoing debate on the topic of how to fix the health care system in America. Some believe that there should be a Single Payer system that ensures all health care costs are covered by the government, and the people that want a Public Option system believe that there should be no government interference with paying for individual’s health care costs. In 1993, President Bill Clinton introduced the Health Security Act. Its goal was to provide universal health care for America. There was a lot of controversy throughout the nation whether this Act was going in the right direction, and in 1994, the Act died. Since then there have been multiple other attempts to fix the health care situation, but those attempts have not succeeded. The Affordable Care Act was passed in the senate on December 24, 2009, and passed in the house on March 21, 2010. President Obama signed it into law on March 23 (Obamacare Facts). This indeed was a step forward to end the debate about health care, and began to establish the middle ground for people in America. In order for America to stay on track to rebuild the health care system, we need to keep going in the same direction and expand our horizons by keeping and adding on to the Affordable Care Act so every citizen is content.
As part of the Affordable Care Act, beginning this year Medicaid will expand eligibility to include all uninsured individuals under the age of 65 whose incomes fall at or below 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, or about $32,500 for a family of four. However, the 2012 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law also allowed states more flexibility concerning what parts of the ACA they can implement and said that those same states would not lose federal funding for their existing programs. This result would leave the decision to opt out of the law's provision into the hands of state legislators. While twenty-six states have chosen to expand healthcare coverage, twenty-one states have not and four have yet to make a decision. The state of Florida is among those not seeking to expand coverage and that decision alone could cost Florida millions of dollars a year in tax penalties. As conservative and liberal state lawmakers square off into a maelstrom of debate over whether Medicaid should cover more people, thousands of uninsured Floridians will be caught in the crossfire.
In recent years, the number of Americans who are uninsured has reached over 45 million citizens, with millions more who only have the very basic of insurance, effectively under insured. With the growing budget cuts to medicaid and the decreasing amount of employers cutting back on their health insurance options, more and more americans are put into positions with poor health care or no access to it at all. At the heart of the issue stems two roots, one concerning the morality of universal health care and the other concerning the economic effects. Many believe that health care reform at a national level is impossible or impractical, and so for too long now our citizens have stood by as our flawed health-care system has transformed into an unfixable mess. The good that universal healthcare would bring to our nation far outweighs the bad, however, so, sooner rather than later, it is important for us to strive towards a society where all people have access to healthcare.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) or ObamaCare as it is widely known, has been a controversial political debate since day one. The Republicans have tried over 50 times to repeal it, to no avail. Like any other bill, there are good sides and negative consequences to it. People can go to healthcare.gov to sign up for insurance under the ACA. There is a plethora of information on the site about what should be covered, who has to participate, who can be exempt, where to get healthcare, why you should have insurance, and how to get it, along with a lot of other information under the Topic selection at the top of the screen. While there is a lot to go through and understand, the ACA still remains widely misunderstood for millions of Americans.
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...
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.
Less than a quarter of uninsured Americans believe the Affordable Care Act is a good idea. According to experts, more than 87 million Americans could lose their current health care plan under the Affordable Care Act. This seems to provide enough evidence that the Affordable Care Act is doing the exact opposite of what Democrats promised it would do. On the other hand, this law includes the largest health care tax cut in history for middle class families, helping to make insurance much more affordable for millions of families. The Affordable Care Act has been widely discussed and debated, but remains widely misunderstood.
Currently in the United States, acquisition of affordable health insurance plans through employers and private corporations is one of the main topics in the political landscape between liberals and conservatives. The traditional way of obtaining health insurance is either by subtracting a certain amount of payout from one’s salary/paycheck or pay out of pocket. However, many people do not have access to health care because of the high costs associated with poor insurance plans that require individuals to pay high premiums and deductibles, which may or may not contain good benefits such as free preventative care. In addition, due to the past economic recession in 2008, many employers could not afford to pay for health benefits and canceled numerous plans for many employees. This effectively increased the rate of uninsured Americans as well as the increasing health care costs.
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People will at least once, probably more, have to deal with insurance companies. For many, this typically results in a long, and heated struggle of figuring out what is covered, and what is not. It is also usually accompanied by negotiating something to be covered, and giving justification of why it should. Almost anyone will agree that handling insurance companies is as bad as pulling teeth. This is said to be true even when the medical diagnoses are concrete in the social construct of society. Many insurances will not cover things as dyer as cancer. If this is so commonly believed, imagine how it is for the illness that are not concrete; illnesses such as bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and schizophrenia. All phrases that are commonly heard in media, but widely accepted as untrue illnesses, or educated
The medical cost coverage depends on the insurance plan one buys which includes bronze, silver, gold, and, platinum levels, and the high the premium equaling larger benefits and more coverage of medical costs (Blumenthal & Collins, 2014). Since the ACA has passed the direct affect was the increase of insurance coverage resulting in the uninsured rate falling to 13.4% in May 2012 with more than 20 million more people covered (Blumenthal & Collins, 2014). Even though the uninsured rate is at the lowest in recent history it is important to consider that the ACA does not replace existing private and public coverage, it is not universal coverage but a stepping stone to better healthcare, and the ACA market place is only open for the previously
Universal health care is medical insurance provided to all the residents of a country by their government. Out of all the major industrial countries, The United States is the only country without a universal health care system. In 2010, President Barack Obama signed a health care reform law making it illegal to be uninsured in America, which is a major step towards it. Universal Health Care should be mandatory in America because it gives everyone an opportunity to receive more equal care, the overall health of the population would increase and current insurance plans are unaffordable for many Americans.
Such as the notion of being “over covered”, studies show that 30% or more of U.S health care spending is on unnecessary care, since over-coverage reduces the cost of risky behaviors, such as unhealthy eating and smoking, people who are over covered have less incentives to make healthy lifestyle choices. Approximately 70% of all health care costs are directly related to personal behavior, costs that could have been prevented. Another interesting thing I learned was the idea that in the market for healthcare supply drives demand. In principles, we learned that as supply increased prices would fall. Title five of Obamacare talks about subsidizing education for healthcare workers, creating scholarships and loan repayment programs for physicians and nurses as well other healthcare professions. The government also tried this back in the 70’s with the idea that if there are more doctors there will be an incentive to lower the costs to compete for patients. This did not work out as expected, in healthcare supply drives demand, so when the supply increased, so did demand and, unfortunately so did the prices. When supply is high, doctors may lower their criteria for certain procedures, increasing the number of procedures done, as well as prescribe more visits to patients so that doctors continuously have