Affordable Care Act, By President Obama

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is a healthcare program created by president Obama’s administration. The goal of the Affordable Care Act is to make sure every United States citizen has health insurance. The Affordable Care Act provides “affordable” health insurance plans to citizens that do not have any and make about $15,000 a year. While the idea of providing health insurance to the millions of American’s that cannot afford it is great, everything comes at a cost. According to Emily Miller, Obamacare is causing people’s health insurance premiums to rise by around 1 to 9 percent (Miller 15-15). Not only are insurance premiums rising, but ever since the Supreme Court declared the Affordable Care Act constitutional approximately 20 tax hikes have been approved (Battersby). All the aforementioned reasons are helping pay for Obamacare. Although providing health insurance for people that cannot afford it is important, the Affordable Care Act should be revoked because it will hurt the economy.

On March 23, 2010, the Affordable care act also known as “obamacare” was signed into law by president Barrack Obama. Only gay marriage legislations and gun laws have elicited more public response than the affordable care act. Both opponents and proponents have presented constructive arguments of the perceived failures and strengths of the act. Owing to the intense debate surrounding the act, very few people understand that the act only came into full implementation in 2014. The raving reviews and critiques of the debate have bordered on myths and perception influenced by political alignments. Pertinent questions have been asked about the affordable care act. There have been conflicting accounts on the role of the affordable care act in regulating the health insurance industry. Concerns have been raised on why patients are paying higher out of pocket expenses yet the affordable care act was meant to introduce checks and balance in healthcare provisions. This paper therefore seeks to deeply explore the affordable care act by researching on these questions. The paper will also demonstrate perspectives on the good and the bad that comes from the affordable care act. Lastly, the paper will analyze healthcare situation in New York City with statistics showing that healthcare services are becoming more expensive in the city even after the full implementation of the affordable care act.

The term “individual mandate,” as a component of the Affordable Care Act, is a mandatory requirement according to which the majority of people in the United States has to have some kind of health insurance. Most specifically, according to the fundamentals of this regulation, any individual who can afford a health insurance policy, but chooses not to do so, will have to pay a fine. Prior to the existence of the individual mandate, health insurance companies had the choice to reject people with health conditions that would potentially incur high costs. Because of this reason, a significant number of people did not have any health coverage. In order to maintain insurance premiums reasonably steady and sustain government cost balanced,

In order to make insurance affordable to all there were extensive private health insurance regulatory reforms, particularly in the small group and non-group markets, there were tax credits offered to the smallest lowest-wage employers for the purchase of health insurance, there were reductions in cost-sharing associated with recommended preventive care. For example if you signed up with a fitness center you can get a 50% discount on your insurance. The market exchange was established for the purchase of private coverage plus subsidies for the individual purchase of coverage and for the cost-sharing of the modest income. “The affordable care act also expanded the eligibility for the Medicaid program to all non-elderly with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level ($23,000 to $32,000 for a family of four in 2012) starting in 2014, which helped phase out the Medicare prescription drug benefit coverage gap, a.k.a. the “doughnut hole”.” To make sure that everyone is complying with the rule of everyone needs to have healthcare coverage there was a penalty set up for those that failed to comply. The penalty was if you did not have insurance by the set date you will receive a tax penalty that you will have to pay when filling your taxes. There are financial requirements that large- and medium sized

The Affordable Care Act established by Barack Obama it is a revolutionary law that was passed to change the healthcare system in America. The affordable care act has many pro and cons. Is the Affordable care a good idea? The Affordable care act was put in place to help maintain healthcare spending cost, reduce the amount of people who are uninsured, create universal healthcare, expanding coverage for young adults and to make prescription drug coverage more affordable for seniors. In the year of 2010 and 2011 over 5.1 million seniors and people with disabilities on Medicare have saved over 3.1 billion on prescription drugs, however this includes a one-time rebate

Hispanics are one of the largest groups in the United States that are uninsured. Additionally, the Hispanic population is one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S. The Hispanic population is estimated to increase over the next 25 years to 32 million out of a total of 72 million of the US population (Brice, 2000). The U.S. health care system is facing one of its most notable societal issues in years in reference to its ability to provide access to medical care for the millions of Americans who do not have health care, for whatever cause. The Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010, for the purpose of reducing inequalities in insurance coverage and to provide access to health care for all. A vital goal of the

The Affordable Care Act, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was put into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. The focus of the Act is a health care law geared towards improving the health care system of the United States by broadening medical coverage to more Americans, as well as protecting the existing health insurance policy holders.

For this reaction paper, I have chosen the topic of whether or not I believe that the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) should be repealed, replaced with something else, or stay in its current form. I believe that Obama Care should be fully repealed. However, I don’t believe that just repealing this legislation is enough. I believe that there should be a series of reforms ready for implementation that follow free market principles and that will restore economic freedom.

The Affordable Care Act is supposed to be designed to make insurance costs affordable for Americans, rather than what the law offer for Americans to pay. The law states that everyone must have health insurance, or they will be subject to penalty. Sireesha Manne, a staff attorney at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty stated “For those with very low wages trying to raise kids after paying for housing, electricity, food, and transportation, and child care, asking people to pay another $50 to $100 a month that’s just out of reach.” A concern regarding the Affordable Care Act, is that even with the federal financial assistance available under the law, health insurance will remain unaffordable for a significant number of low-income families. Although the Affordable Care Act is to be cost effective, the prices and premiums are still exceedingly high for Americans with low and moderate income.

If one cannot afford the price of an Affordable Care Act policy they can be assessed fines or penalties based on their income or a set fee, it has caused taxes to be higher and some of the funding for Obamacare comes from already established government insurance that is mainly for the elderly or retired. When it first came out the whole thing was the butt of many jokes as when people tried to enroll, the website crashed or it took people over an hour to sign up and some people found the whole process to be complicated. In order for some companies to be able to afford the premiums for Obamacare they have resorted to having to cut hours from their employees to under 40

When the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, became a law, one of the requirements of that law was that large employers (Obamacare, 2015) i.e., an employer with fifty or greater employees must provide health care for their employees or face penalties (in year 2016 that penalty will be $3,000 per full time employee). In addition, individuals not covered by an employer provided health plan must pay for their own health insurance (HealthCare, 2015), or they will be penalized financially. As stated in (HealthCare, 2015), the penalty is calculated two different ways – as a percentage of your household income, and per person. You’ll pay whichever is higher.

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 Affordable Care Act completely changed the patient landscape of health care safety nets with its implementation in 2010. In particular, its expansion of Medicaid significantly shifted uninsured patient healthcare provider utilization, from emergency departments and free clinics, towards community health centers and federally qualified health centers. Yet major gaps in healthcare coverage persist due to states choosing not to expand Medicaid, exclusion of undocumented immigrants, and misunderstandings of the ACA. Health care safety net providers must understand their changing demographics and the needs of vulnerable uninsured patient populations. In doing so, healthcare safety net providers will be better informed in regards to necessary changes needed to thrive in the post-ACA era.

In 2014, almost everyone will be required to purchase health insurance or face a $695 annual fine. There are some exceptions for low-income people, but if employers do not offer health insurance, individuals will be required to purchase health care insurance on their own (Wolfe, 2012).

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), popularly known as “Obamacare”, has drastically altered healthcare in America. The goal of this act was to give Americans access to affordable, high quality insurance while simultaneously decreasing overall healthcare spending. The ACA had intended to maximize health care coverage throughout the United States, but this lofty ambition resulted in staggeringly huge financial and human costs.