The Affordable Care Act (PPACA)

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.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or, more commonly, Obamacare, is a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. The law mandates United States citizens to obtain health insurance coverage and businesses of 50 or more full time employees) to provide health insurance to its’ employees. Should you not be covered, a penalty will be imposed.

On March 23rd, 2010 the president of the United States, Barack Obama, signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which is commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or familiarly the Obamacare (What is ObamaCare). President Obama created ACA to make health care more affordable and accessible for people in the United States. The Affordable Care Act guarantees most people will have health insurances as well as reduces the high cost of health care of individual and government. These are also two points that the ACA achieve and will continuously achieve.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a health reform law that was signed by President Barrack Obama on March 23, 2010. The full name of the law is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). One week later the President also signed a law called the Health Care Education and Reconciliation Act (HCERA), which was a supplement that made several changes the PPACA. What the country currently refers to as the ACA or "Obamacare" is both of these laws combined. (McDonough, 2012)

Primary care access is a growing concern for all Americans and the reason behind this concern is an imbalance between demand for care and capacity to provide care. Demand is growing as the population expands, ages, and faces chronic illnesses and the capacity is shrinking as the ration of primary care clinicians to population drops (Ghorob & Bodenheimer, 2012). A primary goal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to improve access to quality health care for uninsured Americans, largely through public and private insurance expansions (Polsky et al, 2015). At the same time, the architects of the law recognized the need to increase the availability of primary care providers to meet the increased demand for health care (Pg. 538, 2015).

Under President Obama’s administration, more than “16.4 million uninsured people gained health coverage” (“The Affordable Care Act is Working”, 2014).

The Affordable care act (ACA), all so known as Obamacare, was signed into law on March 23, 2010. The ACA said that every taxpayer must have health insurance, if they have not enrolled by the deadline they will face a penalty of having to pay for not having health insurance. People were told that with the ACA that health insurance would be more affordable and for some it did but for others it changed what they already had and they can no longer afford to have insurance. Ilyma Somin wrote that because of the Commerce, Tax and the Necessary and Proper Clause because basically they say that ACA offers economic effects in some way or another (Somin, 2012).

Currently, 44 M people are uninsured and the reform will help provide affordable and quality healthcare to these people

Since I have been in America for just one year, I have no idea what the congress is doing. When it comes to write an essay about the biggest legislative success or failure on the part of the 114th, the only thing I know is the Affordable Care Act, specifically Obamacare, because my parents are trying to enroll in the program. After studying how the Affordable Care Act is doing, I found that although many people claim that there are many problems that are difficult to fix, the Affordable Act is doing “better than even many supporters realize”, (Krugman).

America spends 2.5 times more on healthcare than most developed countries yet still ranking 51st in life expectancy in the world (Baum, 2015). The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was implemented January 1, 2014 by President Obama to expand coverage to millions of individuals in need. It consists of two separate pieces of legislation: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Centers for Medicaid and Medicaid Services, 2016). Although the ACA will give health benefits to millions of uninsured Americans, hospitals are receiving less compensation because of the high demand of health care from over qualified recipients. Through the Children’s Health Insurance Program and also the Social Security Act, states are able to pilot a test approach that could extend coverage up to 200 percent of the poverty line (Sommers, Kenney, & Epstein, 2015). Such a large increase in the size of the population that is now eligible to apply for the ACA comes with a sizable amount of fiscal responsibility from the states and puts an immense strain on the amount of money guaranteed to pay for the services provided (Sonier et al., 2013). Given the lack of funding from the Medicaid program, absence of reimbursement strategies, and budget of healthcare in America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP),

Implementation of the ACA would require an extensive expansion of the Medicaid program to low income adults in each state.³ The Congressional Budget Office projects that a previously 30 million uninsured Americans, approximately 92% of the legal, non-elderly population, will have coverage by 2022.³ The federal government will pay for 100% of the costs of expanding Medicaid programs until 2016, and then gradually fade their contribution to 90% by 2020.³ Currently, expansion of the Medicaid program is voluntary and several states have stated that they intend to turn down their share of the billions of dollars that has been made available to each state solely for the expansion of this program.³ States deciding to not expand their Medicaid program will not only exclude many poor, vulnerable families from access to an important health care program, but will also exclude themselves from an economic stimulus for their state and thereby decrease the strength of their health care delivery systems by not allowing them to be more financially stable for the long

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010 under the Obama Administration to make health coverage available to more Americans. According to Thomas Berg, a social researcher and law professor at St. Thomas University, It would have brought greater demand for health services. The increased number of health professions needed to provide those services would have motivated a younger generation to pursue a career in the medical field. The act would have raised the standard of living in America. Unfortunately a clause was added to the ACA in August of 2011 that would mandate the coverage of “Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity” be included all insurance policies (Berg). The mandate would not have been enacted until August of 2012, but religious groups came out in opposition immediately when news of the clause was released. The Catholic Church was one of the prominent advocates against the enactment of the mandate as contraceptive and sterilization methods are against their moral teachings. The government was forcing the coverage despite the objections of those wishing to practice their conservative faiths freely. The mandate stands as an intrusion of religious liberties and an attack on personal values.

With the establishment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), more and more Americans are able to have access to the healthcare, but roadblocks have occurred in the road to get there. After the signing of the bill into law, about 26 states filed a lawsuit in the setting of a federal court. This was done to challenge the constitutionality of the individual mandate (individuals must possess a minimum level of health insurance or face financial penalties) and the Medicaid expansion (individuals earning less than 133% of the poverty-level baseline are eligible for Medicaid). The Medicare expansion is optional, however, as of current, all the states are participating in it.

The payment incentives provided to healthcare providers under the PPACA will most likely lead to improved healthcare quality. In addition, reimbursement will shift from being based on quantity to being value-based which will in turn incentivize providers to provide higher quality care.

Background: the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is a federal health reform bill, requires most public and private health plans to provide a minimum coverage of women’s preventive healthcare services with no cost sharing.1 Therefore, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) was commissioned to review what preventive services are essential for women’s health and welfare and consequently should be considered in the development of guidelines for women’s preventive services.2 According to the IOM recommendations, all FDA-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient counseling and education must be covered for all women with reproductive capability without having to pay a co-insurance, co-payment or a deductible. The covered