Insurance Access For Uninsured / Underinsured With Preexisting Conditions

President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010. This law puts in place widespread health insurance reforms that expanded out over the last 4 years and continues to change the lives of many Americans today. Health care reform has been an extensively debated topic for multiple years, and the ACA is the first effective attempt at passing a law aiming to make health care not only affordable, but accessible for all individuals. The law impacts many Americans including, children, employers, government programs which includes federal and state, health plans and private insurers, health care coverage, health care cost, and the quality of care received. The main goal of the law is to expand health care coverage, broaden Medicaid eligibility, minimize and regulate health care cost, and improve the health care delivery system. In order to improve the health care delivery there have been new consumer protections established and an increase access to affordable care.

Before creating Obamacare, million people in the United States could not afford the expenditure to buy health insurances and drug costs. Therefore, they have no chance to prevent diseases or receive treatments. They could be discriminated against coverage and treatment because they had pre-existing conditions. As shown in statistics in the article “Health Coverage before the ACA, and Why All Americans are Better Off Now” of David Simas, the insurance companies could deny to coverage nearly one in two people because they have pre-condition such as heart diseases, cancer, or diabetes.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March of 2010. This law provides equal access to medical care, lowered health care costs and eliminates denial of coverage of pre-existing conditions to the millions of the uninsured and insured Americans that were without and denied health care coverage. Patients who were denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions can now look forward to relief and great improvement because their illness is covered in the new policy, and care is now provided for them at next to minimal cost (Stehly,

The Affordable Care Act has made many positive changes for uninsured and underinsured citizens. With the addition of a program called Health Insurance Marketplace, it is now possible for uninsured people in every state to purchase private insurance plans, those making under 400% or less of the Federal Poverty Level will be able to have tax credits making insurance more affordable (Lathrop & Hodnicki, 2014). Insurance companies are no longer allowed to cancel a policy or raise rates when a client gets sick. Insurance companies cannot refuse coverage to individuals with preexisting conditions such as cancer (“Quality Improvement,” 2015). Insurance companies now must cover preventive care and screenings allowing diseases like cancer to be caught early (“Quality Improvement,” 2015). Research has shown that through health screenings

Now with this rule, everyone is given the right to own coverage, so in the case of an emergency they’ll be readily able to afford this financial burden. Another rule that was implemented was that “young adults [were allowed] to stay on their parents’ plan until age 26” (Eddlem, 2010, p.1). This is exceptionally helpful for those young adults who aren’t able to financially support themselves. In the past when this age was only 18, those without jobs or any source of income couldn’t afford to have any health insurance. Now that the age has been extended to 26, these uninsured young adults are covered until they are able to financially take care of themselves.

As stipulated in the act, even those with preexisting health conditions can now access the cover without any limits by the law (Whitman, 2015). Consequently, more than 16 million Americans who previously did not have the cover now have the cover. As a result, due to the large pool, insurance premiums paid are much lower. More Americans can now afford to go for checkups hence increasing the chances for early detection of critical health conditions. New illnesses that previously did not exist are now being discovered, especially in the states that the Medicaid expanded

The Affordable Care Act was into law March 2010. The law has planned to make wide-range of changes to healthcare in the United States. The Affordable Care Act efforts to offer universal right to use to healthcare for Americans, control the rising costs of healthcare, adjust the private insurance industry complete things like state-based private exchanges and online marketplace that brings together state-approved insurance plans from multiple companies so consumers can shop for individual insurance plans, improve the quality of healthcare and make healthcare choices more consumer friendly and easier to understand (Medical Mutual,2017). Healthcare reform involves nearly all Americans from old or young,

This act gives the American people rights and benefits. For example: it will provide health coverage to adults and children with preexisting conditions, it will end lifetime and annual limits on health care policies, it will allow adults under the age of twenty-six to be carried by their parent’s health insurance, and it will provide preventive service access without cost.

Once the law was enacted, more than 11 million Americans who were not insured enrolled into a health plan through the market place. In addition, it allowed 5 million Americans to stay on their parent’s health plan until the age of 25 and expanded the qualifications for Medicaid and Medicare. Low income families and individuals can also benefit from Obamacare by applying for federal subsidies, in which will lower the cost of premiums or cover the entirety, if they meet the requirements. With the immense increase in supply of health insurance and competition amongst insurance companies enabled premiums to be affordable amongst the general population. Reducing premium cost will not have an impact on the firm’s revenue as

Once the foundation of the U.S. health care system was reviewed, we began our study of the new regulations. The Affordable Care Act contained three main provisions. The first provision was expanding Health Insurance Coverage. Elements of the regulation included offering coverage to the vast majority of currently uninsured Americans by expanding access to Medicaid to cover all non-elderly individuals below 133 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), and establishing state-based health insurance exchanges, which will offer Americans a range of private health plan options, with federal tax

There are Currently 32 million people without health insurance in the United States. This means that roughly 83 per cent of citizens have to live day by day hoping they won’t get sick. For this reason, President Obama signed the U.S health reform bill into law. The health reform will make health care more affordable for citizens. Employers with more than 50 employees will be forced to provide coverage for all, or they will have to pay a fine. It will also make health insures more responsible. For example, health insurance carriers are forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies, from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions, and from canceling policies because someone gets sick. It will also expand

The concept behind the Affordable Care Law is to provide help with medical assistance for citizens of this nation. When speaking of help, and concept, the Law supports the health of the nation and the health of the patients who need medical assistance. Even more, another huge concept of the plan is to allow the patients to manage their own health needs, this means not allowing corrupt individuals or organization to take advantage of the less fortune. The Affordable Care Act puts consumers back in charge of their health care (Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, 2015). As mentioned before the Law helps with coverage, costs, and care. The approach of each of the previous terms mean a great deal for the nation. The choice to medical coverage created by the Law offers great additions to the idea of equity, efficiency and effectiveness.

Children can stay on their parents, healthcare plan until the age of 26 as of 2012, [2].

Beginning this year is when nobody can be denied health insurance because of any previous medical conditions they were denied to before. The law also ended insurance denials that were due to pre-existing conditions. Good news for adult children is that anyone uo tp 26 can continue to get health insurance on their parent’s policies. The law even ends lifetime limits on insurance payouts and health insurers are demanded to at least spend 85% of their premium dollars on health care.

“61% agreed that young adults should be allowed to remain on the parents ' insurance plans up to 26 years of age.” Many Americans supported this feature because there are many young adults who are not financially stabled and needs to still be dependent on their parents. Young adults should not be obligated to apply for their own health insurance. However, it is allowed if one chooses to do so.