Obamacare: Increasing The Affordable Care Act

Health care has been a controversial topic of discussion for all Americans since it was put in effect many years ago. Currently the biggest debate of Healthcare up to date is Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is a Health care Reform that is a governmental attempt to make basic health care easily obtainable. However, there are no benefits without cost in situations like this, and upon that are different viewpoints on the subject thus creating political debates discussing if it is ethically correct. The overall goal that Obamacare hopes to accomplish is that through specific changes through insurance companies, industry standards, and patient guarantees a healthier America will be produced. Obamacare has its ups and downs for both the generally agreeing democratic viewpoints and the opposing republican side. Both viewpoints have their own beliefs about how Health care works and Obamacare is somewhat in between on this. Most arguments on Obamacare deal with Medicaid being constitutional and if Obamacare truly reduces the total cost of health care for individuals and in the government.

Anderson, Amy. “The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on the Health Care Workforce.” The Heritage Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2015. This paper is a through report on the impact of the ACA on the workers in healthcare, particularly on the ratio of worker to patients. It shows that the act will increase the physician shortage, particularly in already underserved areas and specialties. It will also greatly increase the stress on workers, due to the increase demand from each physician or nurse and the increased amount of regulatory paperwork required. Many healthcare providers are merging into larger business to cut costs; others are running cash-only or annual-fee models. The act attempts to transition to paying physicians for performance

The aim of the ACA is to provide affordable health care to all Americans, but it still leaves some issues unaddressed that will impact the access to health care. Covino (n.d.), “Though the intentions of the legislation are good, the Affordable Care Act does little to improve the actual health care delivery system” (para.1, page 2). According to the American Medical Association, we are facing an increasing Physician shortage. As of 2010 we faced a shortfall of 13,700 physicians, the estimate is that number will increase to 62,900 by 2015, 91,500 by 2020, and 130,600 by 2025 (Krupa, n.d.), with primary care taking the largest impact. Health Care coverage will be of no benefit if there are no doctors to treat the patients. An example of this occurred in 2002 when Thailand’s’ “30 Bhat Scheme” added (CNN n.d.) “14 million people to the country’s health care system, resulting in long waits and subpar service” (Your health is covered, but who is going to treat you?) Several factors contribute to the physician shortage. Many physicians are reaching the age of retirement, the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates nearly 15 million physicians will be eligible for Medicare in the coming years (CNN n.d.). The increasing cost of malpractice insurance also deters many from pursuing a career in medicine, and is forcing some doctors to retire. Also contributing to the physician shortage is a lack of spots in residency programs. “In 2011, more than 7,000 were left

While the Obamacare act has both pros and cons, people are likely to support it or disagree to it on account of the perspective that they see things from. In spite of the fact that the act involves a series of benefits, it is difficult and almost impossible for one to ignore the fact that it is likely to cause a significant shortage of healthcare professionals and that it is also probable to cause an increase in drug prices.

The new federal health-care law has raised the stakes for hospitals and schools already struggling to train more doctors. Evidence suggests there won’t be enough number of doctors to treat the newly insured millions under the ACA. At current graduation and training rates, America faces a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. The greatest demand will be for primary-care physicians. Emergency rooms, the only choice for patients who can't find care elsewhere, may grow even more with longer wait times under the new health law. That might come as a surprise to those who thought getting 32 million more people covered by health insurance would ease ER

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 Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, was passed in March 2010. This over-1000-page Act implements a number of reforms designed to increase the availability of health care for individuals. The Act created a Health Insurance Marketplace, a universal way to sign up for subsidized health care plans (which are cheaper), though you can only get certain plans from certain places, including an expanded Medicaid. It also creates an incentive to purchase health insurance-if you don 't, you 'll have to pay a fine, which is interpreted by many as a tax. Additionally, the Affordable Care Act requires sizable firms to provide a certain level of health care to all of their employees, with certain specifications. Obamacare also attempts to make health care cheaper for many, by trying to even out the cost for everyone.

The Obamacare/ACA, might have helped numerous of individuals in acquiring health care, but the health professionals are facing a shortage of reimbursement difference for their services. As a result, Hospitals and healthcare providers were force to layoff personal and come up with innovative solutions. This point is proven by the renowned author, Amy Anderson by stating as follows: “The American health care framework has had shortages of personnel for quite some time and would not be prepared to give the adequate service to this amount of patients in need of medical attention. Training new professional health services personnel could take years. There is a shortage of graduates from medical and nursing schools. Doctors, nurses and health professional are sharing responsibilities prospective patients will face a longer wait time”. (Anderson, 2014)

Since June 6, 2009, President Barack Obama has told the American public numerous times, “If you like your health care plan, you 'll be able to keep your health care plan.” The public later found out that this was not the case. If your health care plan did not satisfy the minimum federal requirements, then you will disinherit your plan and, you must find another one. House republicans have tried to repeal the bill almost 40 times because they claim it is a major threat to the economic health of the nation. Despite all of the political rhetoric about Obamacare over the past few years, a majority of Americans do not know what it is and how it affects them. While Obamacare does attempt to amend some of the

The Affordable Care Act also known as “ Obama Care” will add 1.76 trillion dollars to the debt will already have, even though the main goal was to “give Americans more rights and protections and expand access to affordable quality healthcare to tens of millions of uninsured”(Obama Care Summary). It was supposed to deduct from the debt and not add to it. Everyone is affected by Obama Care either good or bad, especially patients, companies, hospitals, and medical professionals. A lot of doctors don’t want to stay in the profession because some say the system is broken, they're tired of being lied to and used, and are done with being the last ones to be considered (Branch). Forty-six percent of doctors surveyed gave The Affordable Care Act a D or an F on a scale from A-F. The Affordable Care Act also hurts Medicare because it will take 716 billion dollars from them over the next ten years and use it to expand Obama Care, according to (Ask Heritage). The ACA also affects the elderly because it damages there access to care, " The Medicare trustees 2012 report concludes that these lower Medicare payment rates will cause an estimated 15 percent of hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies to operate at a loss by 2019, 25 percent to operate at a loss in 2030, and 40 percent by 2050. Operating at a loss means these facilities are likely to cut back their services to Medicare patients or close their doors, making it more difficult for seniors to access these services". Obama Care destroys the work ethic because taxes rose, it increased unemployment benefits, food stamp enlargements, and abandoned work requirements to get money from the government,

This is forcing the doctors to no longer accept certain insurance companies such as medicaid because they aren’t being reimbursed for the services they’re providing to the consumers that are using medicaid. One doctor, Dr. Martha Boone in Atlanta, Georgia, said that she would have to see 20 patients an hour in order to make any reimbursement from medicaid. She said that medicaid paid none of their bills coming from her office for 18 months and when her office sent registered letters to Medicaid to see what the problem was they said it was a computer error and still didn’t reimburse her office (Heritage, 2010). Because most doctors don’t receive money from Medicaid, most of them don’t accept it. “Of the 93 internists affiliated with New York-Presbyterian Hospital, for example, only 37 accept Medicare, according to the hospital’s Web site.” (Connelly, 2009). This forces the Medicaid consumers to go to the emergency room when they need help since normal doctors rarely take their insurance. Dr. Lloyd Krieger says that the undoing of this healthcare bill is, “an urgent necessity.” because it is, “doing great damage even years before it’s individual mandates and other controls kick in.” (Krieger, 2011).

Although the Affordable Healthcare Act, also known as Obamacare, claims to be different from other countries that have socialized their healthcare, it is actually quite similar to them. For example in countries like Canada and Great Britain both have similar systems that are like Obama is trying to implement here in the United States. “This approach has proven a failure in other countries, leading to the rationing of care and the lowering of standards. It will prove disastrous here - a pubic-policy malpractice.” (Gratzer p.4) With this implementation, we could be going down the same path of these countries that have a government run health care system. Even with the system that we have now, that is causing such great inflation in the economy, it will be the same with or without this new legislation. “Government managed health care systems are facing the same problems with the health inflations.” (Gratzer p.11) It is quite clear in both systems that inflation is almost unavoidable. That can be caused by a much deeper root cause of how these legislations are being implemented and played out. “Blame socialized healthcare, which produces rationed care wherever it appears.” (Gratzer p.8) Another great issue with the Affordable Care Act is that it will rationed out, which can cause people to wait for treatment for a really long time. In

The article, Internists say the American Health Care Act Will Negatively Impact Patients and Reverse Coverage Gains from the ACA, published by the American College of Physicians talks about how the American Health

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, concerns have been raised regarding the Republicans’ desire to repeal the Affordable Care Act, informally referred to as Obamacare. The ACA was originally enacted into law in 2010 and has been annually provisioned to expand its ability to not only improve the nation’s access to health care, but also to reform the health care delivery system. Through the ACA, private and public insurance has become more available and affordable, new health care delivery models have improved quality of care, and several workforce policies have made primary care a more desirable profession for medical students.

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.