The Affordable Health Care Act

Not only has the cases of preventable chronic diseases increased over the years affecting half of the U.S population, they account for 86% of the health care costs. Programs and policies that address risk factors and causes of these diseases at their roots would not only promote public health but reduce the cost of health care both in treatment and hospitalization.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is a healthcare program created by president Obama’s administration. The goal of the Affordable Care Act is to make sure every United States citizen has health insurance. The Affordable Care Act provides “affordable” health insurance plans to citizens that do not have any and make about $15,000 a year. While the idea of providing health insurance to the millions of American’s that cannot afford it is great, everything comes at a cost. According to Emily Miller, Obamacare is causing people’s health insurance premiums to rise by around 1 to 9 percent (Miller 15-15). Not only are insurance premiums rising, but ever since the Supreme Court declared the Affordable Care Act constitutional approximately 20 tax hikes have been approved (Battersby). All the aforementioned reasons are helping pay for Obamacare. Although providing health insurance for people that cannot afford it is important, the Affordable Care Act should be revoked because it will hurt the economy.

Some states have accepted the terms of the program including all of its expansion on the health care system, but some have been reluctant to implement the program. One of those reluctant states has been Florida, which is apparent by multiple court cases that has come since its inception (1). With Florida’s House of Representative consisting of a majority of Republicans, the conservatives of the state have fought the incorporation of the bill (2). With legislative bodies in opposition of the terms of the Affordable Care Act, it begs to question how policy makers have approached the issue of healthcare. My research question was in what ways the Affordable Health Care Act has affected healthcare in Florida, and how effective has it been in

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).

The goal of this policy brief is to support Alabama’s current decision to continue Medicaid Primary Care Parity, as first enacted by congress in 2010 to all states under section 1202 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, as Alabama is facing budget cuts to its Medicaid services, supporting the “Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women and Children Act” will extend federally funded Medicaid primary care parity without harming the state budget and negate the consequences of limiting Medicaid enrollee access and benefits. The federal government proposed to pay 100% of Medicaid services mandated under section 1202, from 2013 to 2014, which has since expired in December 2014. This program requires certain primary care services to be reimbursed at higher rates equivalent to those rates paid by Medicare for equivalent primary care services. Limited provider participation, limited Medicaid beneficiary access & decreased enrollment of physicians, physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) into primary care can be improved through this monetary incentive.

The Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, just over five years ago. Since then the healthcare industry, and even organizations outside the industry, have been affected in many ways; from new reimbursement models, opening healthcare exchanges, millions of individuals gaining insurance that they previously did not have, and a plethora of new regulations just to name a few. Although the law was passed in 2010, it wasn’t until 2014 that millions of newly insured participants entered into the system when much of the affects were initially recognized. However, even with two enrollment periods under our belt, a new enrollment period set to begin in a month, along with additional regulations still to be fully recognized, how the

The Obama Care bill also Known as the patient protect and Affordable Care Act was established on March 21, 2010. The Affordable healthcare Act also known as Obama Care has helped over a billion people gain access to health. In 2010 it shows that 50 million people in America did not have insurance, it also shows that 48.6 million people had decreased, and then it increased in 2012. In 2010, before the Healthcare Act was signed Obama noticed some of the small issues that were going on in healthcare systems. Obama seen that some of the insurance Companies had some unjustified rates for their healthcare plan. He observed how some of the prices for healthcare were controlled by hospitals and private doctors. The way that the healthcare system used to work was that the people that could afford the healthcare plans were able to get them. The People that were unable to get healthcare insurance like through their job or a private practice had to rely on getting Medicaid and Medicare was only for disable people or elderly people. The Affordable healthcare Act was placed to help people throughout the U.S. receive insurance even if they don’t qualify with their employer or private healthcare insurance. What many people do not know is that the new affordable care act offers many great benefits. Such as great benefits for women’s health, Birth control, people with preexisting conditions have great benefits, etc. Having this Affordable Act care will bring great benefits to our future and

Health and human services policymakers expressed the need to move from single –disease solutions to population health interventions. The need is due to a growing public health concern- almost 1 in 3 Americans is diagnosed with multiple chronic conditions and more than 65% of health care spending is for care given to this group. (Kangovi peer research October 2017).

Total health care spending in 1975 consumed about 8 percent of the U.S economy in 1975. Today it accounts for nearly 16 percent of the gross domestic product and is projected to reach nearly 20 percent by 2016 (Orszag, 2007). One of the reasons for rising health care costs is due to costly new medical technologies. Some of these new medical advancements allow for physicians to treat previously untreatable conditions. It is unclear as to whether these new options are cost effective. Most people believe that more expensive care equates to better health care. There is significant evidence to support that more expensive care does not necessarily mean higher-quality care. This suggests that there may be an opportunity to reduce health care spending without impairing outcomes The most compelling evidence of that opportunity comes from the substantial geographic differences in spending on health care within the United States-and the fact that they do not translate into higher life expectancy or measured

Health care has been a prominent issue within the United States. The United States has made strides to make health care more affordable and accessible to all citizens. However, those strides are not enough to truly make health care obtainable for everyone. The Affordable Health Care Act was made to help make health care affordable for everyone so that everyone can receive the care they need. The Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) does not do its job in making health care affordable. It is essential that congressmen and women reform the ACA because it doesn’t go far enough in reforming health care itself and is doing more harm than good.

In today’s society health care has become a huge issue for most Americans who are financially struggling and who also live in poverty. Obama passed an act known as Obama Care, which is also called the Affordable Health Care Act. The ACA (Affordable Health Care Act) was implemented in order to provide affordable health insurance for those living in poverty and for those who cannot financially afford health care. It was set out to improve the lives of Americans with affordable health care and affordable health insurance for all (Obama Care facts). Due to the propaganda that was put into place with the ACA, a majority of American’s today only know the positive effects the ACA has on today’s society. The first thought that comes any

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) with the creation of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) has sought out to provide health care providers and other organizations in the medical field, research and data to make better decisions about providing healthcare. These decisions are of course centered on patient-outcomes and cost effectiveness. Since the creation of the PCORI it has focused on very general topics in the medical field and may not address a large enough scope of issues before its reauthorization in 2019. The PCORI needs to focus on more specific and quickly effective issues to maintain its relevancy

Before the health care reform, the common approach of care was writing prescriptions and performing procedures after a patient was already ill rather than focusing on preventing a patient from becoming ill or contracting debilitating and/or life threatening diseases and other illnesses. Going forward, times are changing and the insurance companies are now rewarding patients for being healthy with added benefits to promote health and wellness. The affordable care act has shifted the national approach of health care to prevention, early detection and safety as well as disease management. This shift of focus is a

I believed that alcohol consumption, smoking and being overweight could lead to “cardiovascular disease…cancer, [and] obesity” (CAN, 2005, p. 5). Furthermore, those behaviours cause a large cost for society to extend the health care costs for these patients as being overweight and smoking had the largest impact on the health care utilization (Vals, Kiivet, & Leinsalu, 2013, p. 1).

The first reason for managing population health is to improve the health status of populations. This is accompanied by focusing on prevention through preventative care. Many diseases and chronic conditions are highly preventable with the understanding and action of utilizing preventative services (WRF, n.d.). As people are living longer and health services and research are improving, the chances of having an overall better general health throughout a lifetime are greater through preventive care. Not only do these diseases cause a diminished quality of life for many patients, they out a huge financial burden on the healthcare system. Health Care costs are rising due to more people needing treatment for chronic conditions as