Social Issue: Health Care

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.

There is a connection between socio-economics and health.79 Therefore, it’s expected when a states decided to expand Medicaid for more low-income residents, and then that population of people tend to be sicker than the rest of the population (Gershon & Sullivan, 2014). These reasons for expanding Medicaid will transfer those individual’s off the exchange policy into Medicaid, especially those within 100%-133% FPL range. Medicaid expansion could cause the exchange risk pools to become healthier, which means a healthier-risk pool that may be a financial boom for insurance companies that have participated in the exchange. Insurers that participate in the exchange are subject under law, to loss of medical ratio’s; which prevents them from retaining more than a certain level of profit (Gershon & Sullivan, 2014). In cost savings, with a healthier- risk pool possibly can be passed down for other consumer’s to use.

The concept of providing basic healthcare services to individuals in need has undergone an agonizing transition, from a luxury once only afforded by the affluent to a basic human right granted to citizens of every economic station, and the recently enacted Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to finalize this ethical evolution. Reflecting perhaps the bitter political enmity currently consuming the nation's once cherished democratic process, Republican legislatures in states throughout the union have bristled at the ACA's primary provisions, threatening all manner of procedural protestation as they attempt to delay and derail the bill's eventual implementation. One of the most intriguing aspects of the sprawling, thousand page law, however, has been the stipulation that individual states will be given a choice to either accept federal funding to expand their statewide Medicaid roster, or to forfeit all federal funding for that program in perpetuity. The role of government in monitoring and regulating the healthcare industry has been long debated, and the bitterly contested passage of President Obama's ACA, a law aimed at revising the country's health insurance system through the creating of a federal health insurance exchange to facilitate increased competition among insurers, has rekindled the debate over who holds the ultimate responsibility for regulating the care provided by hospitals, community clinics, and private practices.

President Obama wanted to start a plan that made health care available for everyone, which later on created Obamacare. Obamacare is also known as the Affordable Care Act (para 1 and 2). With Obamacare being created everyone is supposed to have healthcare with no exception, Obama made healthcare more affordable for people who can not afford any other health insurance. With Obamacare, everyone will be eligible even those with pre-existing conditions. For the ones who are not fortunate enough and can not afford to pay the plan chosen then assistance will be provided for them. When people are not able to pay for health insurance they are put at the stage of choosing if they want to feel better and buy the medicine or stay sick in order for them to provide what they need to provide for their families at home. Providing the country with Universal Healthcare benefits many people including the government will benefit from this because everyone will be paying to receive coverage at a low cost and they will finally receive the medical attention they have been looking for (para 8). Having healthcare should be considered something we are supposed to be provided with but of course with a certain charge. A reasonable charge that

Obama realizes that a strong nation needed the good health of all people. As a result, President Obama brings the Obamacare health insurance into the marketplaces to reduce the health care costs and to get access to health insurances easier as well. Under the Obamacare, there are no people to be denied coverage for

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. While the act is directed at addressing one of the country's most pressing problems, it generated much controversy as a consequence of the ethical dilemmas that it brings on. The act provides individuals with a wider range of choices and control over their health coverage. It provides a series of benefits such as people getting lower costs on coverage, several important health benefits being covered in the Marketplace, more help in local areas, and pre-existing conditions being covered. However, it also involves a legislation claiming that most people have to have health coverage by 2014, with those who do not have it having to pay a fee.

In today’s day and age, American households can all agree that health insurance is not a luxury, but a necessity. Without it, costs of emergency room visits and prescription medicines can be financially devastating. However, in the past many families and individuals have taken the risk of not being insured due to the high cost of the insurance itself. To attempt to reform this unfair system, the Obama administration signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. The law, coined “Obamacare,” has received much opposition due to its expansion government programs and increase in spending. It brings to question how much the government should be involved in an area that for the majority of America’s history, has been

Since the early days of our nation, our founding fathers thrived for change. At the peak of his election campaign, Barack Obama promised the change the country had been longing for. He promised a health care reform and new benefits. Many presidents elected after the signing of Roosevelt’s New Deal had tried to achieve health care reform but ultimately none succeeded. Obama promised change; his change came under the name of the Affordable Care Act, a bill that was filled with empty promises. The Affordable Care Act, nicknamed “Obamacare” was supposed to benefit all Americans but instead of helping our nation's citizens, it burdened them. It burdened them with higher taxes, less hours of work, and higher costs

Since June 6, 2009, President Barack Obama told the American public multiple 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 lose your plan and will have to 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, most Americans do not know what it is and how it affects them. While Obamacare does attempt to fix some issues in our healthcare system, it still has not completely fixed the problems at hand. It is an unjust fix and it is far from complete.

Questions are constantly circulating around the new Affordable Care Act. Many do not know what it does and the government is trying to make it out to be a big savior to the medical field for doctors and patients alike. The Affordable Care Act has also been given the name Obamacare because of its ties to the President. He believes that increasing the amount of people on insurances of any kind that meets his “standards” will help health care become more available and more profitable. Unfortunately, these claims are not true as Obamacare is clearly going to negatively impact health care in all aspects. The problems start for patients who get on government healthcare programs, such as Medicaid, with the fact that the treatment plans are extremely

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the “Affordable Care Act” into law. Under this law all Americans have access to quality affordable health care. The main concern for many Americans about the Obama’s Health-Care plan is the fact that they will lose the freedom to choose. Choosing health-care benefits, doctors, and high deductible coverage is important to every insured American citizen, so why would Obama change that? In his speeches, Obama has promised Americans that they will be able to keep their existing health-care coverage but the proposed bills tell a different story. Both bills require that Americans buy approved plans that have a number of universal benefits or face penalties.

The Obama Administration, states that those people that already have health insurance will benefit from the legislation in many different ways. One particular way is that, insurance companies will no longer be able to cancel a person’s coverage if gets get sick, out-of-pocket costs will be covered for proven

‘Some counties don't have certain types of doctors” (Leonard 2). If an individual only has one insurer that supports that area, that insurer may not cover that doctor or hospital in that area, which can result to that individual driving far out of their area, just so they can see a doctor or get their medical treatment for a reasonable price. Individuals are also being limited with options because their insurers may see them as costly, and they could force the individual to go to under resourced hospitals (Goodnough 3). This shows that even if an individual does not live in a rural area and has plenty of options to choose from, they can still be limited in location because their medical treatment can be seen as too expensive, and the insurance company has to figure out a way to save money.

While have I have just talked about all the negative aspects of Obama -Care, there are some positive aspects as well. In 2014, because of Obama-Care no one could be denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Also the amount of people under 65 who were uninsured fell from 18 percent to about 10 percent. While Obama-Care does have some drawbacks, it is working in certain ways.

Another group often blocked is complementary or alternative health care practitioners. These restrictions and the insurance industry unwillingness to pay for these services, gives the physicians an almost monopolist control over health care. Providers must be able to enter the market for competition to work and there must be many providers vying for the patient. To get the most out of health insurance plans Consolidation of hospitals and multispecialty group practices increases the negotiating leverage of the group but in certain areas of the US a single large medical system has become the sole provider of major health service thereby restricting competition (Shi & Singh, 2008). This consolidation while giving the hospitals and group practice leverage when negotiating prices of supplies and services tends to increase the price of health care to the patient because there is no longer any competition (Shi & Singh, 2008). For these reason “competition will remain less effective in most health care markets, because the prerequisite for fully competitive markets are not fully met” (Federal Trade, 2004, p. 20).