Health Care Cost Benefit Analysis

I will compare the current health care system with the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that became law on March 23, 2010.   The current system, which is being phased out between 2011 and 2018 is increasingly inaccessible to many poor and lower-middle-class people. About 47 million Americans lack health insurance, an increase of more than two million people from 2005 (Rover, 2011) the increasingly complex warfare between insurers and hospitals over who pays the bills is gobbling up a great deal of money and the end result is that the United States pays roughly twice as much per

The main economic challenge for the healthcare system in the United State will be the rising expenses associated with Medicare and Medicaid. The Governments share of healthcare spending is predicted to rise to 31 percent by the year 2020 (Keehan, Sisko, Truffer, Poisal, Cuckler, Madison, Lizonitz, and Smith, 2011). This may jeopardize the economic stability and financial security of the nation.

In 2016 the American population again saw their insurance plans increasing their premiums from 10%-13% across the board. This is much more than expected, and even worse the co-op insurance plans have failed. The government sponsored non-profit plans offering lower rates have not proven sustainability in result of the majority going bankrupt even after receiving 1.2 billion dollars of taxpayer’s money. The Affordable Care Act is already becoming a huge tax expense amongst Americans leading to the U.S. increasing the overall national debt. Starting 2018 all high end health insurance premium plans will come with a 40% excise tax. Also, changes in flexible spending accounts have occurred as over the counter medicines are no longer qualified expenses for flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts. The health care tax deduction threshold account increased to 10% from the previous established 7.5%. All these changes through different avenues account for more reasons we continue to see costs increase through the ObamaCare.

Health is the most important thing one can have. Without good health, people cannot continue living. Thus, Congress drafted a bill called Affordable Care Act, or commonly known as Obamacare, on March 23, 2010. This new healthcare reform strategize to increase affordable healthcare insurance and lower the costs of healthcare for citizens. One important aspect of the bill is that it demand all insurance companies to cover every client despite his or her pre-existing conditions. The motto for this reform is “quality over quantity,” which means the government want to shift healthcare from higher price to higher benefits. The primary goal of the bill is to lower future government spending (Pear, Robert).

The Affordable Care Act was signed into law early spring of 2010. It’s probably the most comprehensive reform we’ve seen in the United States healthcare system within the last forty four years. Although the law was put into effect, the features of the new law took effect in 2014. The Affordable Care Act changed the non insurance group market in the United States, mandates most residents to have health insurance, considerably expand public insurance and subsidize private insurance, while raising revenue from a variety of new taxes. Projecting the impacts of the health care system will be challenging, but related estimates were required for the legislative process, and conducted by the Congressional Budget Office.

With the implementation of the ACA, many states have expanded their Medicaid programs to include a larger population of low income individuals and families that were not able to obtain health insurance prior to the law. Some of the issues that state legislators struggle with are the overall cost of providing services for the additional recipients, staying within budget, determining an adequate approach of offering quality care, and providing adequate coverage for each recipient. Even though the cost of Medicaid expansion within each state has increased the budget for the program, new appraisals has shown that Medicaid programs spend less per enrollee than commercial health insurance and much of the increase in Medicaid expenses originate from the increase in enrollment in the programs (Coughlin, Long, Clemens-Cope, & Resnick, 2013).

America spends 2.5 times more on healthcare than most developed countries yet still ranking 51st in life expectancy in the world (Baum, 2015). The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was implemented January 1, 2014 by President Obama to expand coverage to millions of individuals in need. It consists of two separate pieces of legislation: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Centers for Medicaid and Medicaid Services, 2016). Although the ACA will give health benefits to millions of uninsured Americans, hospitals are receiving less compensation because of the high demand of health care from over qualified recipients. Through the Children’s Health Insurance Program and also the Social Security Act, states are able to pilot a test approach that could extend coverage up to 200 percent of the poverty line (Sommers, Kenney, & Epstein, 2015). Such a large increase in the size of the population that is now eligible to apply for the ACA comes with a sizable amount of fiscal responsibility from the states and puts an immense strain on the amount of money guaranteed to pay for the services provided (Sonier et al., 2013). Given the lack of funding from the Medicaid program, absence of reimbursement strategies, and budget of healthcare in America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP),

On March 23rd of 2010 one of the most highly controversial bills in American history, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), better known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed into law. The Affordable Care Act attempts to reform the healthcare system by providing more Americans with affordable quality health insurance while curbing the growth in healthcare spending in the U.S. The reforms include rights and protections, taxes, tax breaks, rules for insurance companies, education, funding, spending, and the creation of committees to promote prevention, payment reforms, and more. Four years since being passed has the Affordable Care Act begun to make healthcare more affordable to Americans? When it comes to the affordability of health care In the United States, health care has always been a private for-profit industry. The main purpose of the ACA is to make insurance more affordable and expand coverage to uninsured Americans by enacting a number of provisions. This research paper will explore some of these provisions, document their details and decide whether are not they are truly helping make health care more affordable.

Evaluating the positive and negative impacts of such fundamental reform to the health care system is filled with uncertainty. As with any new legislation, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) required financial projections that would be shared with lawmakers and the American people. The CBO projected that “the ACA would increase health insurance coverage by 32 million people and would raise federal government spending by almost $1 trillion over the subsequent decade, but would also raise revenues and reduce spending by even more so that the bill overall reduced the federal budget deficit.” (CBO, 2010) These CBO projections have played a vital role in the on-going legislative arguments over the ACA.

In 2010, following much controversy, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court and signed into law. (Aoughsten, Johnson, Kuruvilla, & Bionat, 2015). Though this law is still relatively new, the public is reeling for a report on its effects on healthcare so far. The ACA is projected to reduce the uninsured rate by approximately 26 million by the year 2017, but people hunger for the effects on costs, the quality of their care, and any implications on their current healthcare situation (Blumenthal & Collins, 2014). The ACA strives to improve the overall healthcare system and create a patient-centered structure (Yuh, Dall’Era, Penson, & Evans, 2015). These goals have shifted the idea of healthcare we have always had in the United States and allowed healthcare to be focused on the patient as a whole and not just the disease they have. The Affordable Care Act should be continued as the United States healthcare

On the whole, the Affordable Care Act reduces healthcare costs while providing better quality services for citzens accross the US. Farley says that the ACA’s reforms to Medicare saved “17 billion in fiscal year 2013” thanks to reductions in payments to private health insurance companies cover their customers through Medicare Advantage as well as adjustments to the annual updates to Medicare provider rates (Farley, 2014). This protects consumers from excessive charges by their insurance providers, by limiting how much insurance providers spend on their own services. And even though the cost of health care, per capita, is gradually increasing, the rate of that growth has decreased over time, thanks to the stipulations, as well as method of implementations, of the ACA. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++=

Healthcare costs in the United States have been rising for several years and show no sign of stopping. In 2008, the United States spent on 2.3 trillion on healthcare, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 19801. Although the large amount of money invested in healthcare does translate to better care for Americans, the worsening economic situation, rising costs, and federal government’s deficit have placed a great strain on the system. This includes private employer-sponsored health insurance coverage and public insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a private and non-profit healthcare analysis organization, “in 2008, U.S. health care spending was about $7,681 per resident and accounted for 16.2% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP); this is among the highest of all industrialized countries”1. Concerns for the enormous strain on the financial systems that fund healthcare and the desperate need to provide adequate healthcare for Americans have driven many a President since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, to seek some type of healthcare reform and universal healthcare for all Americans. President Barack Obama succeeded where many had failed and on March 23, 2010, a national health reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law. On March 31, 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued new rules

One of this health care’s programs objective is to limit the number of uninsured (Shi & Singh, 2015). This controversial healthcare plan incorporates a privately funded insurance which is paid for through employment and solely by the patient and a publicly funded insurance by the government. Medicare is provided for senior citizens 65 and older, and Medicaid is provided for low income citizens. The federal government and state government both partake in the funding of Medicaid. Although insurance is provided to the low income through Medicaid, the United States continues to suffer from cost escalation spending 17.1 percent of GDP on healthcare in 2013, a 50 percent more than the second nation (Commonwealth, n.d.) The high cost and limited coverage continues to spark up the conversation for a

The passage of the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Act will also inadvertently increase access to many types of medications for individuals who qualify for Medicare Part D. There is a clause within the bill that would establish rebates to be paid by pharmaceutical companies for low-income beneficiaries. These rebates, in addition to lowered costs, would considerably lessen the financial burden placed on low-income beneficiaries. This will allow more individuals greater access to expensive medications. As an example, each year, financial reasons hinder about 16% of diabetic Part D beneficiaries from filling at least one of their prescriptions (Williams, Steers, Ettner, Mangione, & Duru, 2013). This increase in access will help mitigate the occurrence of cost-related nonadherence to prescription medications, and other such consequences

Recently, there have been various issues being debated in the American healthcare system. While many of these issues have been debated amongst for many years, they have recently been debated and focused on more heavily due to the change of Presidents. One of the most leading problems that is being debated right now is the cost of health insurance. Originally, the Affordable Healthcare Act was supposed to make healthcare insurance affordable and more attainable. A few years after the Affordable Healthcare Act was implemented; it became evident that it was a failure for the most part. In a vast majority of cases, it failed many Americans. The Affordable Healthcare Act in many cases has made healthcare insurance less affordable for the American