The Failure of the Affordable Care Act

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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 The Affordable Care Act needs to be repealed and replaced with a single-payer system because Obamacare created ‘death panels’ for aging and disabled Americans, has failed to allow many who wanted to keep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 the 2012 Presidential Debates over the Affordable Care Act President Barack Obama said “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” But this, in fact, is not the case. Barack Obama mislead voters into believing they could keep their health insurance if you were among the 85% already happily insured. His message was, “ObamaCare will affect the other people, not you” (Troy). ... ... middle of paper ... ...yer system. Works Cited Angell, Marcia. "ObamaCare Confronts a Fiscal Crisis: Why the Affordable Care Act Doesn’t Add Up." New Labor Forum (Sage Publications Inc.) 22.1 (2013): 44-6. Print. If You Like Your Healthcare, Can You Really Keep It?. Chart. 2012. Chart of the Week: Estimated Loss of Health Coverage Under Obamacare. Web. 10 April 2014. McDonough, John E., and Eli Y. Adashi. "Realizing the Promise of the Affordable Care Act--January 1, 2014." JAMA: The Journal Of The American Medical Association 311.6 (2014): 569-70. Print. Sanders, Bernie. "A Single-Payer System Makes Economic Sense." Hill 20.100 (2013): S-7. Print. Troy, Tevi. "The Three Failed Promises of ObamaCare." Commentary 136.5 (2013): 20-3. Print. Wear, Stephen. "Sense and Nonsense in the Conservative Critique of ObamaCare." The American Journal Of Bioethics: AJOB 11.12 (2011): 17-20. Print

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