The Affordable Care Actdoc

Running head: THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT 1

The Affordable Care Act

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The Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law immediately after The United States

President, Obama, signed it on March 23rd, 2010 (Huntington, Covington, Center, Covington, &

Manchikanti, 2011). The Affordable Care Act forms a transformational process that America's

health system has gone through dating back the embracement of Medicare and Medicaid. When

the act was established, it had a strong argument that it was going to change almost all aspect of

healthcare in America ranging from delivery of the health care to comprehensive insurance for

all people. This essay will review the Obamacare act, see its pros and cons and give suggestions

for its improvement.

Affordable Care Act Review

The Act law enacted in 2010 was a more socialized solution for healthcare issues and

Republicans supported it. The act formation process from the start was subject to political

pressure. The United States Democrats wanted to expand the Medicare or create something

resembling Medicare alongside the Medicaid. The Democrats wanted the Medicare act to cover

every single participant using a "single payer" (Huntington et al., 2010) system. The Republicans

on the other side had a different vision from that of the Democrats. Republicans preferred a less

ambitious law which will extensively use government subsidies to assist the uninsured citizens

and the rest who can pay their medical services to continue operating as usual (Huntington et al.,

2010).

The Affordable Care Act was formed to avoid problems of the Medicare act. The

Obamacare if passed and implemented too will have shortcomings. This problem includes being

unable to fully pay medical services for the less fortunate in the society and whose medical

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expenses are higher than those able to insure themselves. The act targeted expanding the

Medicare hence it was to cover those operating below and near the poverty line. The

combination between the two healthcare systems was implemented by Mitt Romney who was the

former governor of Massachusetts (Manchikanti, Benyamin, and Hirsch, 2017).

Essentials of the affordable act includes, a mandate that every American citizen gets

entitled to a health cover and that all citizens needs get a cover approval of which failure to do so

attracts a penalty. ACA also has a federal subsidy system aimed at entirely or partially paying for

the newly demanded health insurance for the currently uninsured Americans (Manchikanti et al,

2017), and numerous regulations on the practice of medicine. The act focuses mostly on reducing

the regulatory burden on the members of the public. The act's critical role is focused at

controlling durable medical supply and drug costs for Medicare practitioners and the insurers.

Strengths of the Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care act passed to be law by President Obama has many advantages both

to the government, the insurers and also to the insured. These advantages include;

Impact on Physicians and Hospitals

Patient easy access and provider capacity; The Care Act increases community health

center funding and enhances payments entitled under the Medicaid and Medicare for physicians

who offer primary medical services. Patients can easily access medical services from any

hospital as they have been universally insured under the Obamacare act. The act also makes use

of physician extenders telemedicine services. In in this act, hospital services such as nurse

practitioning and control are supported (Courtemanche, Marton, Ukert, Yelowitz, & Zapata,

2018).

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The act is cost-effective: The Act's name itself points out that its' focus is to control

costs incurred when offering health services to citizens. The law navigates more and targets the

cost of insuring patients. The act cuts cost in the health sector by changing the format in which

physicians and other medical officers work together across all specialties and hospitals. The cost

control initiatives laid forth in the care act include Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) and Shared

Savings Program (SSP. The statute provides health subsidies hence cutting on health costs. The

health also reduces cost by mainly emphasizing on preventive care (Courtemanche et al., 2018).

Impact on Patients and Consumers

Patients can now quickly obtain any medical service regardless of their status, of either

being poor or rich. Patients are no longer dying due to lack of money to pay their hospital bills.

Middle-class patients or consumers receive tax credits on their paid-up premiums under the

affordable care act. This approach is advantageous to consumers and patients (Courtemanche et

al., 2018).

Weaknesses of the Affordable Care Act

Unemployment Issue

Many health insurance companies' employees lost their jobs as the Affordable Care Act

replaced these companies. Many business organizations dealing with insurance found it cost-

effective to let their employees purchase insurance plans on different exchange platforms and

pay their penalties (Courtemanche, Marton, Ukert, Yelowitz, & Zapata, 2018).Currently, other

small organizations have not yet stabilized, and they receive their incentives only through the run

exchanges delivered by the united states government (Courtemanche et al., 2018).

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The Irrelevancy of the Act

The affordable care Act mainly requires services such as maternity. Maternal services are

not relevant to many people hence forcing the people to have an alternative healthcare service.

This problem renders Obamacare not applicable as it lacks the universal aspect. Many people

again had different company plans and relied mostly on private health insurance. The irrelevancy

of the Act made these insurance companies to cancel their plans since their laid down policies

did not cover the ten essential benefits of ACA (Levine, Shannon, Burke, Reale, & Chen, 2018).

Rise in Taxation

Affordable Care Act in 2013 raised income tax rates for individuals earning more than

$200,000. This change in income tax affected more than one million residents. These individuals

tax rates increased from 1.45% to 2.35% on all income earned above threshold (Courtemanche et

al., 2018). The same individuals also pay Medicare tax. This high taxation is not friendly and has

affected many United States residents. Other disadvantages of ACA include the rise in overall

health care costs, rise in preventive care expenses and tax evasion by some medical insurance

practitioners (Levine et al., 2018).

Current Status of United States Health Service

Even with the legalizing of the Affordable Care Act, still, the United States residents face

health issues. When the act was passed to be law in 2010, there were significant projections that

soon, United States would be a world health center that offers affordable care services to its

entire citizens, but even at present, it seems this vision has not yet been achieved (Manchikanti et

al., 2017). Indeed reforming America's health services has proven not to be an easy task. Still the

affordable care act needs reforms.

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Currently, the central federal unit responsible for public health in America is situated in

the department of health and human sciences. Local core health departments coordinate together

in offering health service to the public members (Guzman, & Sanchez, 2018). Currently, there is

a standardized way of delivering health care service in the United States of America. Monitoring

of health-related data collection, outcomes and surveillance are well conducted by the federal

health units (Guzman, & Sanchez, 2018). Despite the fact that there are health control and

monitoring, still, problems with ACA insurance exist. Taxation issue is still a problem in

administering the Obamacare, and there is a need for a universal care act (Guzman, & Sanchez,

2018).

Healthcare Reform Plan Analysis and Act Improvement

Since the current health service delivery in the United States is not that advanced and

promising to all residents, there is a need for reforms. Reforms that will ensure health services

are affordable to all people. Improvements that enable every citizen pay reasonable taxes and in

uniformity, no evasion of tax. All these benefits can be achieved if the government is willing to

change the way it administers its’ health services.

Affordable patients care act has proven to be an excellent tool in offering healthcare

service insurance, but more reforms are needed. The Affordable Care Act should be reformed to

be able to deliver universal health care. Many United States residents were affected due to the

acts irrelevancy. The act was centered mostly on maternal health issues (Manchikanti et al.,

2017), and not every citizen require maternal care service. The Act needs to be reformed in a

way that it will be able to cover all United States residents regardless of the kind of service they

require.

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Taxation issue proofs to be a disaster for those embracing this Obamacare act. After the

implementation of this care act, income taxes raised for the United States' residents (Levine et

al., 2018). People pay both the Medicare tax and the ACA tax which is cost ineffective (Levine

et al., 2018). For those in citizens using the Affordable Care Act, the government needs to relieve

them from paying the Medicare tax. Again it is unfair for all people to pay taxes but those

insured are those below the poverty line. It will be good if all taxpayers get insured regardless of

their economic status.

Obamacare has achieved only a half of the United States resident's expectations (Jett,

2018). In this act, doctors are rewarded for performing useless tasks which taxpayers are heavily

paying to get health services (Jett, 2018).To avoid this issue; the government needs an urgent

reform (Jett, 2018). Perfect monitoring systems for doctors offering health services need to be

established (Jett, 2018). And for effective service delivery, competitive alternative health

insurance acts should be developed. Again to sort the issue of lazy doctors, the government

should eliminate their incentives, this will also aid in cutting up high hospital run costs.

Insurance mediators who skimp on care should be abolished for the better United States residents

(Jett, 2018).

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References

Courtemanche, C., Marton, J., Ukert, B., Yelowitz, A., & Zapata, D. (2018). Early Effects of the

Affordable Care Act on Health Care Access, Risky Health Behaviors, and Self‐Assessed

Health. Southern Economic Journal, 84(3), 660-691.

Levine, D. A., Shannon, C. F., Burke, J. F., Reale, B. K., & Chen, L. M. (2018). Cost-Related

Nonadherence to Medication Among US Stroke Survivors After Affordable Care Act

Implementation.

Manchikanti, L., Helm, S. I., Benyamin, R. M., & Hirsch, J. A. (2017). Evolution of US Health

Care Reform. Pain physician, 20(3), 107-110.

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