Free Essay: Changes in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was enacted on March 23rd, 2010, by the Health and Education Reconciliation Act. After that, it was renamed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (Rosenbaum, 2011). Nonetheless, the complete implementation of the Act was effective in January 2014, whereby there was effective action in Medicaid expansion, responsibility for employers and individuals, and the health insurance exchange for the state. The main interest of the Act is to offer access to affordable healthcare and insurance coverage for all American citizens from birth to retirement. Statistics show that the effect of the law will cut down the number of uninsured Americans by 31 million people, and 94% of Americans will have easy access to affordable healthcare through insurance coverage (Rosenbaum, 2011). Also, the Medicaid program will expand to absorb more than 15 million Americans (Rosenbaum, 2011). Thus, this paper discusses the impact of the ACA law on the healthcare system in the United States of America.

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The Aims and Impacts of ACA

The ten legislative titles of the Act ensure that there is universal coverage for all Americans with shared obligations among the government bodies. Another aim of the law is to increase the level of quality healthcare services, fairness among employees and patients, and create more affordable services for all citizens irrespective of their social class (Protection & Act, 2010). ACA also aims to achieve a high value of healthcare while cutting don costs and making staff responsible in a broad patient population (Protection & Act, 2010). The Act also seeks to ensure that there is secure primary healthcare that builds into long-term accessible, affordable, and preventive healthcare (Protection & Act, 2010). Lastly, ACA aims to invest in public health programs that shall expand clinical preventive care and allow local societal investments (Rosenbaum, 2011).

The US government has tried to achieve the above aims in many ways. For instance, the health insurance exchanges have been effective in reducing deductibles, premiums, and out-of-pocket costs (Huntington et al., 2011). Insurance premium plans have significantly increased due to the need for payers to cover for those who cannot afford the high expenses of their illnesses. For instance, the Gold Plan premium rose to 13.8 percent in 2016, and the Silver plans rose to 11.3 percent while the Bronze Plans rose to 12.6 percent (Huntington et al., 2011). The rise in premium plans indicates that the payers will be charged higher so that the health risks for treatment and prevention are pooled together for all Americans. Thus, citizens will be covered in the state insurance plan. Mergers and acquisitions in health insurance providers are also a cause for the high premiums. Another significant change is the individual mandate that commands every American citizen to pay for insurance cover (Huntington et al., 2011). Thus, payers no longer cover for the less expensive and healthiest patients but also as many ill patients as possible. Patients with chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure are the salient beneficiaries of the ACA law.

Status of the ACA Newly Covered Persons

As stated earlier, the target of the ACA program has ensured that 94% of the American population is covered under the health insurance policy (Nova, 2019). The figures indicate that only 24 million Americans have no insurance coverage, and the statistics continue to decline in the years to come (Nova, 2019). Therefore, states that hade a higher poverty margin, like in the District of Columbia, is reinstating the standards of living (NCSL, 2011). With medical costs reduced for indigent persons, development can sprout in these states to the development of the US (NCSL, 2011). Also, the newly covered persons receive affordable, quality, and accessible healthcare just like all other Americans. Thus, the program has brought equality among all Americans. Poverty gaps continue to reduce while health status improves among all citizens, including children, black Americans, and small business owners.

ACA and the Medicaid Program

The ACA law has ensured that more than 37 states have expanded the Medicaid program (Nova, 2019). Medicaid has been effective in pooling risks for the poor that is rated at 138% poverty level or below (Nova, 2019). In so doing, even poor people have accessed medical care and healed or improved, implying that 19,000 lives have been saved (Nova, 2019). The premiums that payers are forced to pay for insurance under the ACA law are distributed for the various aims, including Medicaid expansion. Thus, with the 90% rise in expenses, the federal government started a reimbursement program for the payers (Guessner, 2016). For instance, Connecticut had cut down personal costs on the program by 6 percent at a time when more than 200, 000 people were covered by the program (Nova, 2019). The federal compensation has encouraged the states that disputed against ACA law to adopt it for their citizens finally. The expansion program that commenced in2012 involved the federal government taking care of 90 percent of the costs (Guessner, 2016). Before the ACA act that is inclusive of Medicaid, health coverage for poor people on the 50 to 60 percentage line was not possible (Nova, 2019). Only children were covered by the CHIP program (Nova, 2019). Thus, the Medicaid expansion program made it easier for the middle class and needy persons to access affordable medical care.

Conclusion

Finally, it is evident from the above discussion that the Affordable Care Act of 2010 was a relief to the American citizens (Protection & Act, 2010). Even though citizens, especially employed ones who had to suffer a significant cut on their income, complained, they have seen its fruits in the end. At first, the rise in the premiums affected many of the Americans in the employment sector. However, the insurance sector benefited and proliferated. In the end, the federal government offered to compensate payers at some point such that the burden was waived. Thus, ACA has brought better healthcare, low poverty margins, equality, quality services, and expansion of the Medicaid program.

References

Guessner, V. (2016). How the Affordable Care Act Changed the Face of Insurance. Health Payer Intelligence. https://healthpayerintelligence.com/features/how-the-affordable-care-act-changed-the-face-of-health-insurance

Huntington, W. V., Covington, L. A., Center, P. P., Covington, L. A., & Manchikanti, L. (2011). Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010: reforming the health care reform for the new decade. Pain Physician, 14(1), E35-E67. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/112e/e81a54df5e686dc0555e86e2a27b42254149.pdf

NCSL. (2011).The Affordable Care Act: A Brief Summary. https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/the-affordable-care-act-brief-summary.aspx

Nova, A. (2019). How the Affordable Care Act Transformed Our Healthcare System. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/29/how-the-affordable-care-act-transformed-the-us-health-care-system.html

Protection, P., & Act, A. C. (2010). Patient protection and affordable care act. Public law, 111(48), 759-762. http://www.alpinehr.com/news/PPACA.pdf

Rosenbaum, S. (2011). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: implications for public health policy and practice. Public health reports, 126(1), 130-135. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003335491112600118