Health Care Policy Summary

Simultaneously, health and healthcare policy plays a tremendous role in the quality of life of every American. Likewise, by the government constantly interceding, health and healthcare is significantly influenced by the political climate and undertakings of administration; therefore creating a conflictual split between republicans and democrats. Health care is regarded as a product rather than a human right shaped by policymaking. Policies establish healthcare service stipulations, which are rooted in local, state, and federal statutes combined with landmark court decisions. Not only does policy focus on healthcare services; but, it also places a substantial emphasis on cost-efficiency and equality.

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.

The judiciary, executive, legislature, at both state and federal levels, are the three branches of government primarily responsible for the formulation of healthcare policies in the United States. There are other non-governmental organizations such as professional and ethics bodies that provide rules and guidelines in some health care policies.

On June 28, 2012, The Supreme Court ruled the Federal Government does not have the constitutional right to sanction an individual to buy health insurance, but declared that the states do have the right to place a tax on citizens that do not carry insurance. This ruling is in response to President Obama’s Patient Protection and Healthcare Act of 2010. Passed on March 23, 2010, President Obama’s Reform Act mandates Texas, as well as the nation, to provide Medicaid funding to all individuals that are uninsured by 2014. As well as expanding Medicaid, it will provide exchanges, which are pools of insurance companies a previously uninsured person can pick

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also referred to as ObamaCare, is a complex U.S healthcare reform that attempts to expand and improve access to healthcare and decrease spending through taxes and regulations. The main goal of the ACA is to provide more Americans with affordable health insurance. States vary in when and how they implemented the ACA in order to meet the needs of their state in hope to decrease the uninsured population. Every state had the option decide whether to offer healthcare through a state-based or a federal marketplace. Some states sued the federal government questioning whether they even had to right to impose this act. New Mexico and Pennsylvania are just two of the states that have had to figure out a way implement the Affordable Care Act. Each one had to take into consideration several factors including their state population, the demographics of that population, how many uninsured people there were, and the economy of their state. They both had the public plans such as Medicaid, Medicare and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) options as well as new federal subsidies that would now be offered depending upon income. Since there is no “one size fits all” health plan each state was challenged to make the best decisions using the tools available to them. This information was then used to formulate a plan that would give the most people access to affordable healthcare in each of these

On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Healthcare Act into law. It had been estimated that 30 million people would sign up for the new healthcare act. As of April 15, 2015 the actual number of people that have signed up is 11,776,046 which is a far cry from what was predicted. Within the healthcare system all across the United States things are changing. How will the Affordable Healthcare Act impact the healthcare system within the United States? This paper will address what the Affordable Healthcare Act is first and then

Dr. Donald A. Barr in Introduction to US Health Policy discusses the different methods in which states attempt to expand health care coverage throughout his book. In chapter eight, The Uninsured, Barr focusses on one such successful expansion. Massachusetts increases the number of people insured in their state through individual mandate, a term used to describe when a government requires individuals to obtain health care (240). After the success of Massachusetts, the federal government attempted a similar system through a policy called the Affordable Care Act (ACA). How does the ACA compare to the Massachusetts’s policy? Though the ACA was made to reflect the Massachusetts’s individual mandate policy, they also have some key differences.

There have been two major Supreme Court lawsuits pertaining to the Affordable Care Act that could have resulted in the repeal or dismantling of the law. One of the Supreme Court lawsuits was the 2012 “NIFIB v. Seleblius” case, which ruled in favor of the ACA with some changes implemented. The other lawsuit was the 2015 “King v. Burwell” case which once again ruled in favor of the ACA. In June of 2016, the Supreme Court saved Obamacare yet again. The ruling held that the Affordable Care Act authorized federal tax credits for eligible Americans living not only in states with their own exchanges, but also in the 34 states with federal marketplaces. It staved off a major political showdown and a mad scramble in states that would have needed to act to prevent millions from losing health care coverage. These Supreme Court decisions prove that they were in favor of Obamacare, although it was damaging to our

In 2012 the Supreme Court resolved a case where Florida sued the Federal Government over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Florida believed the Federal Government had overstepped its allocated powers granted to it by the constitution. Specifically article 1, section 8, known as the Spending Clause, which gave the government the power to grant money to the states and tell the states what to do with said money (Jefferson, 1787, p. 25). Florida’s issue arose in the fact that the Affordable Care Act provided no additional funding and the government has no right to tell the states how to spend their own wealth.

Since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, there has been a continuous debate about the effects it will have on the United States economy. Many people argue that expanding insurance coverage for all people will create crippling cost burdens for the economy and taxpayers. While others believe that the ACA will in fact give the economy a much-needed boost. In 2006 as a measure to improve overall healthcare, the state of Massachusetts implemented the Health Care Insurance Reform Act. This paper looks at the positive and negative effects of the Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform Act (MHRA). Using a literature review of public health studies ranging from 2009-2012, I argue that there are both positive and negative effects of the Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform. While the Massachusetts Reform increased health insurance coverage for all citizens and decreased the number of uninsured citizens accessing emergency rooms, it also did very little to decrease already existing racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities among minorities and whites in the state of Massachusetts. Understanding the Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform Act may help in the goal of trying to achieve near-universal healthcare. This paper provides an understanding of the missing pieces in the Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform Act and constitutes a starting place from which to understand the Affordable Care Act.

The most-recent court case, attempting to discredit and possibly break Obamacare, is known as King v. Burwell. This case is the third in the past four years to have arguments presented before United States Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare, which is unusual as the Supreme Court is typically selective of the cases it chooses to hear and doesn’t take many cases a year (Four Words Could Bring the Law Down). Prior cases brought before the Court questionedthe legality of forcing individuals to cover themselves ( known as “individual mandate” ), religious objections to birth control, and other mandated coverage elements.

In February 2017, the news was dominated by stories and video of town hall meetings with constituents telling their representatives stories of how the ACA had benefitted them or their loved ones in one way or another (Colliver, 2017). There is no doubt that the law has helped thousands, maybe even millions of people across the country. There have also been stories of individuals who have health insurance, but are unable to use it because of high deductibles, which effectively render the insurance policies these people hold emergency only plans (Luhby, 2016). This is most certainly an unintended consequence of a law that was written with good intentions, but which needs to be modified to work with the real life situations the citizens of this country are faced with.

“ObamaCare contains many benefits, especially for low and middle income families and business” (“ObamaCare: Pros and Cons”). Many people have been having concerns on the cost of the insurance because it has raised in cost. There is a new law out there that President Barack Obama passed called ObamaCare. ObamaCare is also known to be The Affordable Care Act (ACA). The goal of this act was to make sure every American had health insurance by January 2014. ObamaCare went from being something good, to a controversial issue towards Americans. This topic is very debatable in positive and negative ways, it just all depends on how it effects someone. One of ObamaCare’s requirements were to have companies provide health insurance to people

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.

Obamacare, officially called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Plan, is reforming the healthcare industry and the American health care system: Even though this reform was developed to give America and more rights and protections within the healthcare system, many are saying it is taking their rights within the healthcare system away. The healthcare reform is said it will help tens of millions who are uninsured but many Americans are seeing Obamacare as a threat related to having the government force them into purchasing insurance or paying a penalty for not having insurance. “The law requires all Americans have health insurance by 2014 (or pay a per month fee for each month without minimum essential coverage). Although this shared responsibility provision is unofficially called an individual mandate, it was ruled to be in fact a tax and not a mandate by the June 28, 2012 Supreme court ruling.” (http://obamacarefacts.com/obamahealthcare-summary/, 2015). A total of 54% of Americans in a recent poll say they are against