The Affordable Care Act Of The United States

The Affordable Care Act was passed to provide American’s better access to health insurance coverage. In addition to better access the ACA improved health care quality and lowered health care cost. The ACA reformed health insurance by expanding coverage, holding insurance companies accountable, lowering health care costs, guaranteeing more choices, and enhancing the quality of care. Although some states have not implemented all the benefits of the ACA, most citizens do have access to health insurance. This paper will address some of the general highlights of the ACA, how it impacted healthcare and the nursing practice.

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare or ACA, was signed into law in March 2010 with the goal to expand insurance coverage to millions of Americans over a period of several years. Since its enactment six years ago, there have been millions of Americans that have gained access to coverage. The most notable of this population would be the disabled, mentally ill, and impoverished. In order to continue to provide quality outcomes for patients, especially patients of vulnerable populations, extra focus must be given to ensure access to healthcare, decreasing disparities, and harvesting improvement in areas such as preventative care, education, and maximizing quality of life. With this influx of people entering the healthcare field, the role of nurses and nurse leaders is also expected to change. Nursing scope of practice and education will be expanded to create an elite healthcare provider. This will include maximizing knowledge in areas of holistic care, education, and preventative care. The incorporation of the ACA into healthcare for vulnerable populations will have several implications for nurses including expanding leadership roles, changing the healthcare delivery model, and providing a broad range of care.

The Affordable Care Act reflected a shift from Treatment Model to Prevention Model, which requires well-educated nurses with more scientific understanding and skill in the process of care continuum – promotion and prevention to treatment. Since the medical field is undergoing a transformation, there is an increased need for highly qualified and competent nurses to provide safe and effective patient care in the new system. As the healthcare system has undergone dramatic changes over the last many years, nurses are now required to qualify well to provide more services than they did before. They also require to work as a team to provide optimum patient outcome. The Affordable Care Act also covers pre-existing conditions, which were once rejected by insurance providers. Such inclusion of the pre-existing conditions requires the nurses to increase their knowledge bases to cope

Over the last five years, the United States has implemented a new policy in which Americans will receive their health care benefits. This policy is known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act which was implemented in 2010 through United States federal statue and signed into law by President Barack Obama. The intentions of the reform is to insure that all Americans have affordable access to health care benefits without struggling to afford the cost associated. The reform is broken down into nine title sections that affect all aspects of health care and changes that will be associated. In this paper, I will be discussing each of the title sections and how the changes will affect the field of nursing.

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 was a transformative piece of legislature aimed at putting health insurance back in the hands of the public. This comprehensive healthcare plan outlines several key provisions that apply to nursing. "The Affordable Care Act is working to make health care more affordable, accessible and of a higher quality, for families, seniors, businesses, and taxpayers alike. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act clearly represents a movement toward much-needed, comprehensive and meaningful reform for our nation’s healthcare system (About, 2014).

Healthcare reforms have always been a big priority to many presidents of the United States. Every president has been trying to introduce different healthcare reforms to congress but many have not seemed to work. Health is very important, when one thinks about it, health is on par with education on the priority list because both of this factor into economic development. If we do not have healthy citizens that do not have their proper vaccines then our life expectancy is going to decrease. When President Barack Obama was first elected into office, one of his main points was the healthcare system in America. He wanted everyone in the United State to have affordable health care and if they were seriously poor then he wanted them to have health

With the rising cost of healthcare-it is important to be able to have insurance to help with the expenses. Many Americans are without coverage and keep from getting the care they need due to lack of funds to do so. This has been a topic of discussion for years, but the Affordable Care Act is a recent type of insurance that can be obtained by any individual. This paper is to discuss the Affordable Care Act, who founded it and the purpose of. It will also include nine titles that give a full description and applications on the nurse’s practice.

The report shows that the part of nursing must be expanded so that nurses are able to practice to the fullest degree of their education and training. Currently, advanced practice nurses (APRNs) work according to the scope of practice guidelines set forth by their individual state, meaning these highly educated nurses may not be working to the extent of their training but to the individual state laws. The report offers recommendations to streamline these idiosyncrasies and get rid of the red tape so that nurses can work in their appropriate manner and deliver safe quality care to some 32 million Americans who will before long gain access to health care services (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2012). The report correspondingly finds that nurses need to attain advanced levels of education and training through an enhanced education structure which encourages a cohesive academic progression as to safeguard the delivery of quality health care services. Patients are becoming progressively more complex and nurses need to attain the proper skills to care for these persons. Nursing education must embrace the continuous move towards a streamline approach to higher degree programs (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2010, p. 2). Nurse residency programs

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced by the Obama administration is expected to provide health insurance benefits to approximately 30 million Americans. Nonetheless, coverage expansion is not synonymous with actual care expansion, and this dissimilarity is becoming much clearer. When the national health law was passed by Congress, it unleashed tsunami mayhem of insured new patients and a consequent flooding of a system of deliver that was already fragile and strained. For decades now, the American health care system has experienced exponential workforce shortages and is hardly prepared to meet the huge influx of patients efficiently or effectively. Successful training of new nurses, physicians as well as other health care professionals takes several years or eve decades. With less graduates from medical and nursing schools and an increase in innovation for sharing responsibilities and roles among doctors, nurses and other medical personnel, patients and families will be susceptible to extended wait times, extreme difficulty in accessing healthcare providers, shorter time with providers, further costs and other new frustrations with health care delivery (Anderson, 2014).

Healthcare reforms including Obama Care, formally named the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act greatly impacts physicians and nursing shortages. There are several provisions which could direct impact physicians and nurses through incentives for potential recruitment, grants, training and retention. Through potential initiatives, the act may indirect effects that may question or present new reimbursement alternatives and models of health care delivery options. Healthcare reforms will allow millions of additional working as well as no working Americans to obtain healthcare coverage and this

The overall health care industry has undergone fundamental change over the last decade. Most of the changes have occurred within the underlying business operation of the healthcare industry. Legislation in particular has had a profound impact on the health care industry. First, due to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, the nursing profession is undergoing a fundamental shift in regards to the patient experience. The U.S. health care system is now shifting the focus from acute and specialty care to that of primary care which requires a shift in business operations. Also, due primarily to that aging of the baby boomer generation, the need for primary car overall is shifting and will be needed heavily in the future. The last 10 years in particular has seen an increasing influx of retiring baby boomers that subsequently need care. A positive impact on the ACA legislation is that more individuals are now insured. As such, the need for primary care will also increase over subsequent years, particular within the minority population. This patient centric approach will require more care predicated on specific communities in a seamless manner. Furthermore, primary care physicians will be in high demand over the coming years.

Effect of new policy on Nursing practice, Health care delivery and Health care consumers (now and in the future).

There are over three million nursing professional in United States and they make the largest segment of nation’s health care workforce. Nurses can play a vital role in helping to realize the objectives set forth in the 2010 affordable act, legislation that represents the broadest health care overhaul since the 1965 creation of Medicare and Medicaid program (IOM 2010). Due to the restricting barriers nurses were not able to respond effectively to the changing health care systems. In 2008, The

Nurses have an important role in the delivery of health care and their practice is guided by rules and regulations established by the government. President Obama recent establishment of the healthcare reform was designed to ensure health care coverage for all Americans, focus on preventative health care coverage, improve healthcare efficiency and quality (Paradis, Wood, & Cramer, 2009, p. 281). I will discuss how the new healthcare reform affects community health nurses and the sponsor of the new regulations. Also I will include new reports and interview data collected from President Obama regarding the health care reform and further discuss his reasons for the healthcare regulation. Finally, I will describe how this new healthcare reform has an impact on nurses and the consumers of healthcare. Nurses serves as a key component in the delivery of care to the patient and we have to keep abreast of changes within the laws or policies established by the government regarding our scope of practice.

These impose severe constrictions on the ability of the nurse to move forward or advance into the areas of practice where traditional nursing practices were not allowed {Institute of Medicine, 2010}. However with the increase in the number of nurses graduating with advance degrees in nursing; the situation is changing. These well educated nurses are leading the charge to confront the complex issues that the rapidly changing health care situation presents. Regulatory barriers must be lifted so that nurses can practice within their scope in order to be reimbursed by private insurance for the services they provide. These changes can be done through the federal and state legislators as well as supervisory agencies and bodies such as congress and licensing regulatory boards. The IOM also recommends that nurses will expand their scope of practice and increase their responsibility through teaching and counseling of patients. {Institute of Medicine,2010}. The use of Advance Practice Registered Nurses and Physician Assistant in providing primary care services will decrease wait time and increase patient satisfaction. The high turnover of nurses transitioning from school to practice also affects the quality of care. These nurses do not have enough experience to make decisions in patient care.{Institute of Medicine,2010}.The IOM and JCAHO{2012} report supports the recommendations for the introduction of nursing residency