Sinjini Chakraborty UIN:679288611
1. Healthcare.gov is supposed to be the gateway to Obamacare. A one stop access portal for anyone who is looking to get insured under the Affordable Care Act or more colloquially known “Obamacare”.
The main goal of Obamacare is to have the 48 million uninsured people in the US come under the purview of affordable insurance so that they can have better health care services by a cost sharing approach.
The goals can be further broken down to 10 major areas:
i) Young People under 26 will be insured under their parent’s health insurance cover. An approximate 2 million ii) Health insurance companies can no longer drop people who fall sick. No gender discrimination. iii) Pre Existing conditions won’t be a hindrance to get an insurance. iv) Essential benefits like birth control, mammograms etc. will be provided without co pay. No discrimination against women.
v) As a result of the top four goals the insurance companies are expected to lose some revenue. To get to a win-win and viable model an “individual mandate” is included. This basically insures that everybody gets insurance whether through their employers, or subsidies by the Government or out of their pockets. For non-compliance in this case is a tax equivalent to 1% of their annual income in 2014 and 2.5% in 2016. vi) Formation of online health care exchanges which are preferably State run. vii) For those people who cannot afford insurance subsidies will be given by the Govt. in
Obamacare expands Medicaid and created a Health Insurance Marketplace, a universal way to sign up for subsidized health care plans. It makes it easier for low income families to receive benefits from Medicaid and other unsubsidized loans. Over half of uninsured Americans can get free or low cost health insurance, and some can get help on out-of-pocket costs using their state’s Health Insurance Marketplace. Through the Marketplace, though, you can only get certain plans from certain providers, as many of them are unwilling to provide subsidized loans. Protections from Obamacare also ensure that you can’t be dropped from … or denied coverage or treatment for
Obamacare or Affordable care act (ACA) refers to the healthcare act introduced by President Obama in 2010 and represents one of the significant healthcare reforms since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The primary purpose of the reform was to increase the quality and affordability of health insurance, expand the reach of insurance, and reduce the costs of healthcare for both individuals and government.
Purpose of the Policy or Program: ObamaCare, or also known as the Affortable Care Act, is a primarily known United States healthcare reform law that expands and truly aims to improve access to care and spending through the economies regulations and taxes for the countries citizens. The primary and main focus of the Affortable Care Act is to provide assistance for more and more Americans with access to adequate, good, and affordable health insurance, this is where improving the quality not quantity of health care is aimed by the health insurance, and reducing the health care spending within the United States of America. So known, to many Americans, there is a crisis, or even we can say it’s an epidemic in a way where many Americans are
ObamaCare ot The Affordable Care Act is a US human services change law that extends and enhances access to care and checks spending through directions and duties. The Affordable Care Act's principle center is on furnishing more Americans with access to moderate medical coverage, enhancing the nature of human services and medical coverage, managing the medical coverage industry, and diminishing social insurance spending in the US.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which is commonly known as the health care law or Obamacare, is a federal legislation enacted in the United States in 2010 to help in lessening the number of uninsured people in the
According to David Nather, the bill also plans to set up something called a health exchange. A health care exchange is a virtual marketplace where you can purchase health insurance. It is “Expedia for health care” essentially(page 71). The exchanges were created for small businesses and for people who cannot obtain employer based insurance or they do not want insurance from their employer. Health insurance cannot refuse coverage for pre-existing conditions. The new standards organize the plans into one of four categories. These categories are as follows: bronze, silver, gold and platinum. According to Nather, bronze covers 60% of all health care costs; silver covers 70% of all costs; gold covers 80% and the platinum plan covers 90% of all health care costs. All these values are averages so coverage will vary (Nather page 76). If health insurance companies raise rates too much, they will be removed from the exchange.
The Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare increases the quality, accessibility, and affordability of health insurance for all types of people with various financial status. In exchange, people who do not have an insurance would have to pay an additional fee for not having han insurance. This policy would make more people get an insurance and receive benefits as they grow old. This would ensure that it is not cheap for the people who are actually able to pay for their service. This law, stops insurance companies from dropping you when you are sick, protects against gender discrimination, expands free preventative services and health benefits, expands Medicaid, improves Medicare, requires larger employers to insure their employees. This would ensure equality for all patients are patients would not be abandoned when they are severely sick or not able to pay for their treatment. This also creates a marketplace for subsidized insurance providing tens of millions individuals, families, and small businesses with free or low-cost health insurance, and
For those Americans not covered or find their work coverage too expensive, there is a new way for them to buy insurance on their own called Health Insurance Marketplaces. Some states have named these marketplaces something else. The Health Insurance Marketplace is like a virtual insurance megamall where private insurers compete for American’s business. Americans can pick out how much coverage they want, how much they want to pay for it, from cheaper high deductible plans to more expensive plans. Regardless what plan is chosen, all plans will cover a complete set of services like hospital visits, doctor visits,
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA of 2010) was the first time the U.S. government had addressed the issue of providing insurance to all Americans in a significant way (Shi & Singh, 2013). President Barack Obama signed the ACA of 2010 into law on March 23, 2010. Since then the comprehensive reforms that the law provides, has been rolled out in stages throughout the years following. Some of these changes included, in 2010 a new Patient’s Bill of Rights went into effect, 2011 brought free preventative care services, 2012 introduced a Value-Based Purchasing program to hospitals, in 2013 open enrollment began for the health insurance market place, and 2014 will be the first tax year that individual that choose not to get health insurance will pay tax penalties for doing so. These changes and the many others detailed in the ACA of 2010 aim to provide more access to health care, bring new consumer protections, improve quality and lower health care costs (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.).
“The fundamental market failure that Congress sought to fix was this cost-shifting from the uninsured to the privately insured.” (Fisher) It is clear to see that Obamacare did not fix the cost-shifting it was implemented to fix. There are still free health insurance options where the government is responsible for so many American’s healthcare costs, and when it comes down to it, the premiums for individuals with private insurance have still continuously went up over the years since the Affordable Care Act was passed. In 2012, Daniel Fisher wrote, “Existing federal laws already cover the poor, the elderly, and the roughly 60% of Americans who get their insurance through employers. Those laws provide free and low-cost care to just about anyone who needs it.” (Fisher) If this is the case, what purpose does requiring everyone to have insurance serve? It does not change the financial state of the country and only minutely impacts each individual’s quality of
Affordable care act is a law reform for healthcare. It is also known as Obamacare. The goal of this reform was to give access healthcare to uninsured and the people who can’t afford health insurance. There are benefits for the program more people have health insurance and it is affordable. People who are uninsured now have access to health insurance (Kinzer, 2017). The program is teaming up with Medicaid. Medicaid has expanded to help 15 million people that fall under the poverty rate and there is no lifeline on healthcare (Media solutions, 2016).
Public policy, such as subsidies in the form of tax credits for the purchase of health plans through the exchanges, have been in existence since the inception of the ACA, but one could contend that this falls short on many fronts. Subsidy thresholds and amounts are simply too low and premium costs too high for many middle-income earners to make ends meet. In some cases people would rather risk going without insurance and pay the penalty, than pay for a plan they can’t afford to use anyway (Bernard,
The tax collected would instrumental in ensuring that insurance is available to all. The dependent coverage will now include citizen between births to age twenty six. A reinsurance program will be adopted to cover early retirees. Insurers are under this title expected to provide coverage regardless of the genetic information, medical condition, domestic violence, or other health-related causes. Americans who have incomes between 100 and 400 percent of the Federal poverty line (FPL), will access tax credits of about $ 88,000 allocated to a family of four members.
In 2010 President Barack Obama was on his first term as president and the senate was controlled by the democratic party, together they made the most significant transformation to the American healthcare system to date. They enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care, which would become universally known as Obamacare. Up until this point in American history, the only two government enacted healthcare reforms were Medicare and Medicaid which provide healthcare insurance to qualifying elderly citizens and low-income families (Dye and Gaddie 650). Citizens could be covered by private insurance companies by either paying for them or being provided health insurance through their employer. However, insurance premiums soared after the financial crisis hit and many employers stopped offering their employees insurance (Obama, whitehouse.gov). According to the
Obamacare may be one of the most debatable topics at the moment ever since 2010. For those who are still confused on what Obamacare is and how it works is understandable and common amongst Americans. Obamacare is also known as the Affordable Care Act. It can be summed up as a law that ensures every American has access to health insurance that is affordable and within their budget. This is done by offering people discounts on government-sponsored health insurance plans, and by expanding the Medicaid assistance program so they include more people who can’t afford health care. In order for someone to qualify for Obamacare they must have an insurance plan that covers at least ten essential services that pertain