Continued Controversy Over the Affordable Care Act

According to a lot of people in the United States, while the ACA may provide an avenue for uninsured Americans to obtain health insurance, there is an underlying agenda that the government has in doing so. Perhaps those that believe this have good reason to feel this way because according to heritage.org, the ACA “imposes intru¬sive federal control of the American health insur¬ance and delivery system” (Hoff, 2010). While there will be an exchange system set up in each state the federal government will be in control of these exchange systems. A lot of people feel that this is just another way for the government to control the people. Only time will tell just how much truth there is to their concerns.

On March 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or “Obamacare” was signed and put into effect (DiMichele, 2017). From then to now, many people in the United States are split from fully agreeing to completely against this certain reform. Throughout different types of research and speaking to an interviewee, I have found multiple reasons that the ACA is good and why it can be bad (or Pros and Cons). One important pro that I found was that with Obamacare, anyone can have the choice of their own Physician or place of care for their needs, then just being able to get care from an Emergency Room (ASPA, 2015). This lets the patient have more freedom to make their own decisions based on their own healthcare and what they

On March 23,2010 the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, was signed into law. This act aims to provide affordable health care coverage for all United States citizens. “The Affordable Care Act affirms the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care.” (President Obama) It will provide insurance to more than thirty million people who have been previously uninsured, and will be achieved by expanding Medicaid and extending federal subsidies to the lower and middle income Americans to aid in purchasing private coverage. Although many attempt to view it in a completely positive or completely negative way it affects all aspects of the health care industry in various ways.

The most radical reform made in the United States of America in the past 45 years has been the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010 ("Key Features of the Affordable Care Act"). The purpose of the ACA is to redesign companies within the insurance industry in the United States, mandate everyone in the country to have health insurance, expand public insurances while private insurances subsidize, introduce newer taxes, and transform the country’s largest health insurance, Medicare. As the country slowly integrates itself to this new health care act, people feel they must come to a decision of joining the ACA or finding another way to be covered by insurance.

The Affordable Care Act is surrounded by numerous political circumstances. The Affordable Care Act has been called by many names such as Obama Care or healthcare overhaul. The healthcare overhaul is one of the rare policies that has been developed, but not tweaked to perfection; it may never be tweaked to satisfy everyone, but it could still improve. According to the article entitled “The Science of Muddling Through” by Charles Lindblom “Policy is not made once and for all; it is made and re-made endlessly” (Lindblom, 1959, pp. 86). The act of policy-making is based on consecutive approximations to some sought after objective in which the ultimately desired objective continuously changes under reconsideration (Lindblom, 1959, pp. 86).

The Affordable Care Act or ACA is a federal statute initiated by President Barack Obama, its intended effects were to supply medical coverage at a low cost to millions of Americans who could not afford access to healthcare. There are a variety of economic and scholarly opinions regarding the ACA’s effect on the healthcare market. Many of these viewpoints have changed over the course of Obama’s presidency as the statute began to affect individuals and the healthcare market.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) or know as Obamacare has given our country confusing matters to consider. The argument of misleading the facts in dealing with the ACA have caused an uproar with the American people. Before ACA was even composed we were misled in thinking that the uninsured, instead of health concerns, is the cause of the American people decrease of life expectation. Now that the ACA is in place, people are told they will be fine if uninsured, when in truth they will be taxed. The harshest misleading fact is that gaps in the Affordable Care Act make insurance not affordable to all citizens. We are being led to believe that a single player for health care is not socialized medicine. I believe that things needed to change with our health care and its cost, but misleading the people just causes more confusing, disappointments, and suspicions of what may follow.

Before the 23rd of March 2010 having health insurance was optional for all Americans. On March 23rd of 2010 Obama’s health care reforms timeline began. The health care reform is also called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for short. The affordable care act should “provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending…” (Healthcare). Obama’s new health care plan is forcing all Americans to get health insurance and those who don’t get health insurance will be penalized when filing taxes. The health care reform has now taken full effect on the people of the United States, so we have citizens who are excited about the reform, and we also have citizens who are upset about the reform.

Ever since announcing his candidacy for the presidency, the now President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, emerged as an anti-Obama regime leader. He vowed that he would scrap off most of the changes that Obama had made when in the presidency (Rovner & Terhune). Some of this included the same-sex marriage legislation and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which is popularly known as Obamacare. The Obamacare is a policy that had benefited a lot of people in the United States, especially those in the middle and lower class factions of the society. They managed to obtain insurance and were able to access medical care despite the increased costs in service provision. However, President Trump did not completely do away with the ACA but

The Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is a federal statute that was signed into law on March 23, 2010 by the Obama Administration. PPACA is more commonly referred to as the “ACA” or “Obamacare”. “A primary goal of the ACA was to increase access to health care services, largely through major expansions of state Medicaid programs in 2014 and beyond” (Wilk, 2014). The quest for health care reform began in the early 1900s and has become increasingly more debated throughout the century. The American Medical Association (AMA) began the journey and has been joined throughout the many decades by the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL), President Roosevelt, President Truman, President Johnson, President Nixon, President Clinton, and President Obama, to name a few. The ACA demonstrates the need for the balance of power between state and federal government, as well as, how America has been handling the balance of power. This law has been in the making since 1989, conceptually beginning as the Individual Health Insurance Mandate through the Heritage Foundation. The individual health insurance mandate had been introduced by Republicans twice in 1993, in hopes of providing “a bill to provide comprehensive reform of the health care system of the United States” (Sen Chafee, 1993). The bill has been revised multiple times since 1993, budding into what is commonly called Obamacare.

The US healthcare system is currently undergoing what is arguably its biggest change since its enactment in 1935 with the Social Security Act. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010 by President Barack Obama in an attempt to bring cost free preventative care to all American citizens. And while this may sound like good news since it will help take care of the 54 million Americans that were uninsured in 2010 when this Act was signed (Kocher 2010) not all of these changes to the healthcare system are beneficial. Many citizens will find themselves penalized by the fees and requirements of the ACA, along with many others

Basic changes in the way Americans will get health coverage and what it will cost starting in 2014, when major parts of the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare”, go into effect.

Like many, my previous opinion regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was primarily based on political and philosophical differences with the legislation and its supporters/opponents. While I continue to have an ideological difference to many of the principles in the ACA, I do now realize that this legislation does have some theoretical positive aspects regarding a shift towards more managed care and the increasing encouragement of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). This shift has the potential to be helpful in terms of cost controls as it makes a substantial shift towards outcomes and away from fee per service care. ACOs also have great potential for helping to reduce overall costs in high risk, high cost patients (Powers & Chaguturu, 2016). This can be extremely beneficial as this high cost group is only a small percentage of our population but makes up the majority of our healthcare spending. It appears that the legislation at a minimum also helped to increased public awareness that we have a cost and quality problem, and I believe this recognition is helpful long term. However, I am still under the belief that the content of the legislation was built primarily for the benefit of the powerful lobbyists throughout the healthcare industry (i.e. insurance companies, AMA, etc.) and very little was included that would encourage the type of long term changes in the way we view healthcare and personal responsibility to be truly effective.

This Chicago Tribune opinion piece examines the current Obamacare dilemma within the government and how it can possibly be fixed. Currently the Republican party is working hard to repeal Obamacare and replace it with their own health care plan, but they seem to be a long way off from constructing one. The Democrats don’t seem to like the idea of Obamacare being replaces, though they do admit that Obamacare has some theoretical “holes” in it and the bill should be mended, but not destroyed. The editor of this article believes that the Republicans and Democrats should come together to fix this problem. He then lists some possible ideas, but all ideas sent the same message that these two political parties need to put their differences aside and fix this issue or nothing will happen. I 100 percent agree with the editor. This is how politics should be handled, but it seems everyone would rather argue and stay with their ideas instead of opening their minds to new ideas.

Though the ACA was passed in 2010, it has been fought along the way through the courts, legislature and Congress. Specifically, Republican congressmen, governors, and candidates have steadily opposed it and have declared to repeal it. It is estimated that less than 50% of the American population are for the ACA. The ultimate goal of the ACA was to improve the health of Americans by decreasing the number of uninsured citizens and in the first year of the ACA, it is estimated that more than 10 million citizens were able to obtain health insurance. The ACA has removed several of the undesirable features of private insurance such as the rejection of health insurance coverage for those with pre-existing medical conditions. In addition, Medicare