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The impact of the Affordable Care Act on healthcare
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With the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, it seems that the laws of supply and demand have changed since everybody is now mandated to have health insurance or pay a hefty fine to not have health insurance. With the “Health Insurance Exchange,” that also affects the economics of the situation as well, along with the price of everything. Since the Affordable Care Act has been enacted, the laws of supply and demand for insurance has changed drastically, and maybe not for the better. The law of demand does affect the Affordable Care Act greatly. People have to decide if they would either purchase health insurance or pay the hefty price of a fine. So, demand would increase until everybody has health insurance, and then it would
“Americans without insurance coverage will be able to choose the insurance coverage that works best for them in a new open, competitive insurance market – the same insurance market that every member of Congress will be required to use for their insurance. The insurance exchange will pool buying power and give Americans new affordable choices of private insurance plans that have to compete for their business based on cost and quality. Small business owners will not only be able to choose insurance coverage through this exchange, but will receive a new tax credit to help offset the cost of covering their employees.
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.
With implementation of healthcare reform, steps are being taken over the next several years to insure all American’s. Starting in 2014, a new resource called an Exchange will be available. According to HHS, a healthcare exchange will “provide a transparent and competitive insurance marketplace where individuals and small businesses can buy affordable and qualified health benefit plans”...
This is based on a study done by the Congressional Budget Office in 2009, which concluded this increase "will lead to higher net medical spending" (Amadeo). The increased number of benefits actually causes the cost curve to rise (Tate 122,123). PPACA will impose a tax on those individuals that do not have insurance by the deadline in 2014, and the tax will increase each year (Amadeo). PPACA also requires insurance plans to cover ten specific health concerns or it fails to meet their criteria (Amadeo).
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
Healthcare has been a topic of discussion with the majority of the country. Issues with insurance coverage, rising costs, limited options to gain coverage, and the quality of healthcare have become concerns for law makers, healthcare providers and the general public. Some of those concerns were alleviated with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, but new concerns have developed with problems that have occurred in the implementation of the new law. The main concerns of the country are if the Affordable Care Act will be able to overcome the issues that plagued the old healthcare system, the cost of the program, and how will the new law affect the quality of the health delivery system.
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. According to Kaiser Family Foundation, 39 percent of people ended up paying more with the ACA. Although, as
(ObamaCare: Pros and Cons of ObamaCare). With all the new mandates under the Affordable Care Act the state average for insurance premium increase is about 10.5% which is about another $1,294. For some people this can be a lot of money for health insurance benefits that they may not even use but are mandated as a part of the Affordable Care Act (Pipes). The premiums sky rocketed after the Affordable Care Act was put into effect in 2011 compared to the trend in the few years before (Appendix Figure
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).
Many changes in health care insurance have been made to increase the amount of individuals with health insurance coverage. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted in 2010 in efforts to help solve some of the biggest issues that Americans faced with health care and its availability (The White House, 2016). As of today, more than 9 out of 10 Americans have health insurance (The White House, 2016). This means that 20 million people have gained health insurance since the ACA was enacted (The White House, 2016).
Universal healthcare is in place in almost every developed nation with the United States being the last to do so. But is the Affordable Care Act the solution for universal healthcare in the United States? In 2010 President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. Parts of this law were enacted in 2012 and was to be fully implemented on January 1, 2013. Unfortunately many parts of the bill, such as the website to sign up applicants, has failed and many states have rejected the proposed changes in infrastructure that makes the bill possible. The main purpose of this reform is to expand Medicaid coverage, hold insurance companies accountable for rising costs, lower overall health care costs, guarantee more choice of physicians for patients, and give quality healthcare to all Americans (Troy 21). Throughout the enactment of this bill, only one of these promises has been upheld, the expansion of Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act needs to be repealed and replaced with a single-payer system because Obamacare created ‘death panels’ for aging and disabled Americans, has failed to allow many who wanted to keep their current health coverage to do so, many people’s previous physician is not covered under Obamacare, and ObamaCare is failing on Obama’s main promise, lowering the overall cost of healthcare while giving universal coverage.
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,
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.
This paper will take into account the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Law and how all three branches of government are involved with the creation and analyze issues associated with the ACA. Subsequently the paper will describe the role of public opinion and lobbying groups. Thirdly this paper will evaluate the concepts of equity, efficiency, and effectiveness showcasing their role in the law and its passage. This paper will take into consideration the anticipated effects on cost, quality, and access, including discussing the balance of markets and the government. In closing this paper will highlight the anticipated effects on Medicare and aging as well as Medicaid and the poor. The ACA was signed on March 23, 2010 with the intention to offer all U.S. Citizens and residents a qualifying health care coverage plan. The law’s focus is to expand coverage, control health care cost, and improve health care delivery system.