Health Care Innovation Project Week 9

The United States of America is the most prosperous and free country in the world because of hard working citizens and the God-given freedoms we possess. America has contributed countless scientific and medical discoveries and accomplished feats deemed impossible by others. The wealth and progress in this country was not brought about by government intervention and supervision, but from individuals who had the freedom to do what they did best. Because of this freedom, America’s healthcare is currently unmatched anywhere in the world. Though other countries may tout free healthcare, they make it up with burdening taxes, understaffed hospitals, and incredibly long wait periods. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act puts America’s healthcare system in jeopardy of falling into the same trap. “Obamacare”, as it is referred to, moves America to a bureaucratized and overburdened system having far reaching consequences on taxpayers, professionals, and patients and should be repealed.

The Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. The Affordable Care Act also nicknamed as “ObamaCare” faced huge amounts of adversity and challenges on its way to being ratified and upheld by the Supreme Court. Some of these arguments highlight the disadvantages of free social services, the escalating federal deficit, and the altering the healthcare industry’s landscape completely. Healthcare is generally defined as providing for the wellbeing of a personal through medical services. In America, all services come with a price, and healthcare has become an industry that is nearly only about the money and less about the patient. Needless to say, the quality of care that a patient receives is almost

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),

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted in 2010 and was designed to insure millions of people, who did not have health insurance, reduce out-of-pocket expenses for families and reduce costs for small businesses. In essences, when enrollment opens in 2013, the ACA law will target the 42 million Americans that according to a Census Bureau Survey are uninsured (Klein). Indeed, Obama Care from a utilitarian point of view is a huge improvement in medical services to a larger proportion of the population, that prior to this law did not have insurance available to them, including improved availability of health care services and reigning in out of control insurance companies.

The ACA provides various benefits to Medicaid enrollees by expanding coverage to include mental health, prescription drugs, family planning services, hospice care for children, tobacco cessation, preventive and obesity related services. The main provision of the act is to reduce cost while improve the quality of care and the way it is delivered. The law prohibits insurance companies from dropping coverage for any reason, provide insurance even if there is a pre-existing condition. Provide coverage for preventive services and immunizations. Dependant coverage is extended up to age 26. The law established a cap on insurance company’s spending on non-medical costs and administrative expenditures. Insurance companies cannot charge more money based on an individual’s health status, gender or salary. The ACA reforms Medicare by closing the coverage gap also known as the “donut hole” by continuing coverage for prescription drugs.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was created by President Barack Obama on March 23rd, 2010. This act created several policies that covered many individuals in the United States who were previously uninsured. The ACA mostly focus on improving health by creating initiatives that improve access to healthcare, lowering healthcare cost, improving quality of healthcare, and updating new consumer protections. According to authors Gruber and Sommers, “Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act(ACA), an estimated 20 million Americans have gained health insurance, and the country’s uninsured rate has dropped from 16% to 9% since 2010 (Gruber & Sommers, 2016). The issue with health insurance in the United States is that it is primarily expensive, while

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

This health insurance coverage program was designed to lower the costs of health care while increasing the productivity and results seen by patients. Stipulations set forth with the Affordable Care Act ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to receive health coverage. At the same time, hospitals and doctors offices are expected to streamline their costs while continuing to provide above average services. Doing these two things in combination allows public and private health insurance systems to offer coverage to Americans at a reduced rate.

In 2010 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed into law. This was done because millions of Americans went without healthcare coverage. They either did not qualify for government assistance through Medicare or Medicaid or could not afford to purchase it on the open market. Others, that had health insurance, could not afford to use it because the out of pocket costs were more than they could afford. Around the time that the ACA was being debated there were about 50 million Americans that had no health insurance (Stack, 2016). Additionally, the United States was and is spending more on healthcare than any other industrialized nation (Menzel, 2012). One would think that with increased spending came better health

It is also targeted at lowering the rate of uninsured rate by expanding public and private insurance coverage. Finally the act aims to reduce the costs of healthcare for individuals and the government. It introduced mechanisms such as mandates, subsidies, and insurance exchanges. The law requires insurance companies to cover every applicant within new minimum standards and offer the same rates regardless of sex or pre-existing conditions.

The law facilitated spreading of risks among insured individuals, thereby ending the previous state of discrimination experienced in the health sector. Previously, the American citizens had experienced discrimination in areas like gender and health status as well as facing different health care costs based on individual’s age (Manchikanti & Hirsch, 2009). The plan imposes limitations on the previous discrepancies concerning the amount that individuals were being charged. Therefore, all Americans who are in the position to contribute towards the plan should maintain a minimum essential coverage while individuals who cannot afford are exempted from maintaining the coverage. The plan established a marketplace for competitive health insurance enabling many Americans to access group buying, comparing insurance plans as well as receive cost assistance. The other benefit of the Affordable Act is an introduction of stability to the American budget and economy. The available projection predicted a reduction of the budget deficit by around $100 billion within the next decade, after implementation of the plan.

The Affordable Care Act’s main focus is on providing more Americans with access to affordable health insurance, improving the quality of health care and health insurance, regulating the health insurance industry, and reducing health care spending in the US. The law contains hundreds of different provisions that address different aspects of “the healthcare crisis” in the US (ObamaCare, 2016).

The United States has a relatively low proportion of health insurance by public programs. There are two main health delivery models that we learned in class. One was the acute versus preventative. An acute care model focuses on treating what is the problem right now and the preventative focuses on primary preventative care. The second one is single payer versus multiple payers. This is where one source pays for all of the care. Poor Americans in the United States have worse access to care than wealthy Americans due to the coverage expansions. For individuals with private insurance, rising premiums and cost sharing have undermined wage gains and driven households into debt and even bankruptcy. Reforms are needed now more than ever to reduce the financial burdens of medical care borne by non-wealthy Americans.

The United States is currently experiencing a historic slowdown in the growth of health care costs. From 2010 to 2012 real per-capita health spending grew at an average annual rate of 1.1 percent; this slow growth continued in 2013. The ACA is contributing to these trends through reforms to Medicare that reduce excessive payments to medical providers and private insurers and by deploying innovative new payment models that incentivize more efficient, higher-quality

total national health expenditures in 2010, Medicare is often a significant part of discussions about how to moderate the growth of both federal spending and health care spending in the U.S. With the dual challenges of providing increasingly expensive medical care to an aging population and keeping the program financially secure for the future, discussions about Medicare are likely to remain prominent on the nation’s agenda in the years ahead” (The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010).