EMTALA Contribution To ACA

In 2010, the United States created The Affordable Care Act (ACA). The objective was to share the responsibility of costs between the government, individuals, and employers to provide affordable access to quality health insurance. “However, health coverage remains fragmented, with numerous private and public sources, as well as wide gaps in insured rates across the U.S. population.” (“United States: International Health Care System Profiles,” n.d.). Each individual state within the US, generally has control over private insurance.

Critically analyze the implications of the state’s decision to opt out of Medicaid expansion on the citizens of the state.

“When we debate health care policy, we seem to jump right to the issue of who should pay the bills, blowing past what should be the first question: Why exactly are the bills so high? (Sultz & Young 336)”. It’s no surprise for many Americas today to realize that the cost of healthcare and the cost of having insurance is on the rise. Many people wonder why something stressed as important for every individual to have access to, is so expensive and inaccessible for many. So, why is that something that should be accessible for anyone, is lacking this quality? Many people today lack health insurance coverage, because of the high cost for private insurance or because of the loss of employer-based health coverage. Many Americans during the last decade, especially during the years of economic recession and contraction no longer have access to job-based health care insurance coverage (Sultz & Young 290). As a reaction to the many uninsured individuals and to attempt to control short and long term costs, the government had implemented the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been a topic of dispute since its introduction and continues to be discussed by politicians in the U.S. and throughout the world even after its passage. The Act has many opponents and is the cause of much controversy nationwide, primarily because it introduces higher healthcare costs for the richest citizens. Nevertheless, the ACA is an important stage in the American healthcare development process as it not only allows more people to receive healthcare services, but will also reduce the deficit. However, not everyone agrees. The policy is controversial in terms of cost vs. benefits, but the benefits ultimately outweigh the costs.

Throughout the early 1980’s and 1990’s the Federal Medicaid program was challenged by rapidly rising Medicaid program costs and an increasing number of uninsured population. One of the primary reasons for the overall increase in healthcare costs is the

In a traditionalist state, such as Texas, the financial toll that Medicaid would have on its taxpayers was on the frontlines. The Texas legislature was worried about whether or not its taxpayers would face a tax increase to cover the increased cost of those covered by Medicaid. These taxpayers would inadvertently pay for the hospital bills of those who are uninsured in Texas through an average $1,800 rise in the cost of their premiums (Rapoport, 2012). In support of expanding Medicaid, Texas would receive federal funds in order to ease the cost that accompany the expansion. Since Texas decided not to expand Medicaid, Texas “would be leaving billions and billions of federal dollars on the table” according to Anne Dunkelberg (Rapoport, 2012). Not only does this monetary incentive give Texas an extra push to participate towards expanding Medicaid but it would also help the residents of the state to get insured. Texas legislators understood that this monetary incentive would not fully cover the cost of the newly enrolled Medicaid recipients. In the end, they would have to rework the annual budget and increase taxes in order to cover these extra recipients.

The US’s health care system opposed to the other institutions better represents the wealth disparity effects. A substantial number of its citizens cannot afford health care, and if they do, they do not get high-quality care deserved (shortfalls). The Obamacare or Patient Protection and Affordable Care (PACA) Act of 2010 attempts to reform US Health Care (Amadeo, 2017; Cutler, 2012). Though PPACA does not rise to the challenge, health care is an admirable task to assume. Those who buy insurance together with the company significantly influences PPACA’s success. Its fault includes the Medicaid expansion, the

In recent years, health care has been a huge topic in public debates, legislations, and even in deciding who will become the next president. There have been many acts, legislations, and debates on what the country has to do in regards to health care. According to University of Phoenix Read Me First HCS/235 (n.d.), “How health care is financed influences access to health care, how health care is delivered, the quality of health care provided, and its cost”.

The issue regarding the lack of healthcare in America is prominent but is a more significant issue than what is commonly known. For instance, it is not publicly recognized that those who are mentally ill are covered by the same healthcare as those with conventional ailments. Because of this, money becomes an issue; health insurers cannot cover every case, or cannot fully cover any case. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Patient Protection Act, both part of “Obamacare,” were passed in order to fix this very issue; these acts are ultimately attempts to reach parity. However, the chance to have healthcare that fulfills parity, equality of coverage, has passed, the ACA is too late and it is time to come up with new solutions. To settle for

Health care in the United States is driven by a patchwork of services and financing. Americans access health care services in a variety of ways — from private physicians’ offices, to public hospitals, to safety-net providers. This diverse network of health care providers is supported by an equally diverse set of funding streams. The United States spends almost twice as much on health care as any other country, topping $2 trillion each year. (WHO.INT 2000) However, even with overall spending amounting to more than $7,400 per person, millions of individuals cannot access the health care services they need.(Foundation 2009) So when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a the Affordable Care Act or ACA) was passed in the summer

In 1986, Congress enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) to ensure public access to emergency services regardless of a person’s ability to pay. The law's initial intent was to ensure patient access to emergency medical care and to prevent the practice of patient dumping, in which uninsured patients were transferred, solely for financial reasons, from private to public hospitals without consideration of their medical condition or stability for the transfer. EMTALA is considered one of the most comprehensive laws guaranteeing nondiscriminatory access to emergency medical care and to the health care system.

Also by rejecting the Medicaid expansion community-based providers, including hospitals are casualties. Hospitals will continue to provide care to the uninsured without sufficient compensation, increasing shift costs to the privately insured. This also has a chilling effect on enrollment in private insurance plans through the new federally facilitated marketplace. Opposing the Medicaid expansion also ignores the real needs of the uninsured and the massive financial burden shouldered not only by the hospitals but taxpayers and businesses. (Stultz, 27)

The ACA started rocky and has been through provisions that have aided to more American citizens being eligible for government health insurance. The social contract between the ACA health care policy and the American citizen’s is formed because of the U.S. governments concern for the health of it citizens. In 2011, almost 48 million citizens of America did not have health insurance and the under-insured nearly amount to 25 million (Horton, Abadia, Mulligan & Thompson, 2014). The rising numbers of health barriers have influenced the U.S. government and the policy making process. Social contracts in America have been molded around public policy throughout the years (Lind, 2007). A health care policy like the ACA goes through a complex system

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.

Advocates of private insurance systems argue that flaws in the system can be remedied with regulation of the market or through government subsides to help the poor afford the insurance (NEED SOURCE). Even with the attempt at regulation of the private finance system in the US (the ACA and existing Medicaid program), patients still have limited coverage and accessibility (White, 2013; Garfield and Damico, 2015; Smith and Medalia; 2015). Regulation through expanding Medicaid has fallen short due to state autonomy upheld by the Supreme Court ruling; as of September 2015, 20 states refused to adopt the ACA expansion of their Medicaid programs (Garfield and Damico, 2015). Since ACA envisioned that the expansion of Medicaid would cover an increasing number of families and childless adults at a certain percentage of the poverty line, it does not provide financial assistance to people below poverty for other coverage options (ibid.). The result is a “coverage gap” where many adults do not qualify for Medicaid but are below the lower limit for marketplace premium tax credits (ibid.). Currently, it is estimated that more than 3 million adults fall into this gap indicating that patching a system of inequity and limited access still results a larger in problems for lower-income people to gain access to healthcare (ibid.). Though the ACA is still the early stages, it appears that even a “radical” change in private healthcare financing in the US is not enough to