The Affordable Health Care Act

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been a topic of dispute since its introduction and continues to be discussed by politicians in the U.S. and throughout the world even after its passage. The Act has many opponents and is the cause of much controversy nationwide, primarily because it introduces higher healthcare costs for the richest citizens. Nevertheless, the ACA is an important stage in the American healthcare development process as it not only allows more people to receive healthcare services, but will also reduce the deficit. However, not everyone agrees. The policy is controversial in terms of cost vs. benefits, but the benefits ultimately outweigh the costs.

The Affordable Care Act is considered to be a landmark legislation that sought to bring changes to overhaul the health care system within the United States. While the ACA has brought necessary improvements and changes to how health care is handled, it has also directly affected many stakeholders within the health care industry. The major stakeholders of health care are considered to affect each and every aspect of the massive industry, and can be influential. This paper will be specifically addressing the effects of the ACA on the employer stakeholder group. It will talk about the new responsibilities and taxes employers must face, how the ACA is currently affecting employers at the moment and into the future, how the employees and their dependents will be affected by these changes, and finally what strategies employers can take to mitigate

The Affordable Care Act includes changes to Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and creates many conflicts and benefits around how it will affect health care in the future. Clearly, all items within the medical reform are connected, so that a positive impact in one area may inversely affect another. The primary change is the extension of health care coverage to the uninsured, but it comes with a cost. Costs include penalties, taxes, reduced medical access, and lower reimbursement rates for physicians and hospitals. The Affordable Care Act is conceived with a good purpose; as a result, everyone will now have access to affordable health care, although, “affordable” is not yet well defined. Health care providers will be able to continue their vocation of providing good care for our society, but in some cases, changes to insurance may still have a poor outcome.

The Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010. On June 28, 2012 the Supreme Court upheld the Healthcare law. The new bill covers several benefits for families such as “guaranteed coverage of pre-existing conditions and elimination of gender discrimination” (Obamacarefacts-pros-and-cons). There seem to be plenty of gray areas in the Affordable Care Act due to disagreement with state legislative, but some that are very positive in my opinion. We will look at the benefits of the Affordable Care Act for women, senior citizens, college students and also the opposition of the Employer Mandate.

By requiring high-risk individuals to have health insurance, a financial strain is placed on the insurance companies that require

The ever rising cost of healthcare has made access to healthcare almost impossible to many households in the United States. That these households have stagnant incomes has further complicated issues (Collins, 2008). Many working families without insurance cover have been forced to pay for their own medical expenses that consume lion share of their incomes. Individuals have been forced to forfeit healthcare because of its inherent costs. The lower-income and middle-income families are a very vulnerable lot because they are either uninsured or underinsured (Collins, 2008).

Substantial increases in health care costs has put significant strains on federal, state, and household budgets as well. Quality of health care varies widely, even after controlling for cost, patient preferences, and sources of payment (ATR, 2015). Many Americans lack health insurance coverage which also put a burden on the health care system itself, onto the consumers, and the tax payers as well.

“The average premiums in the nation's individual health insurance market "actually dropped significantly" in 2014, the year that the Affordable Care Act took effect.” (Mangan, Dan. "Average Health Insurance Premiums Fell after Obamacare Took Effect, Study Says." CNBC. CNBC, 27 July 2016. Web. 15 Jan. 2017.) This would cover surgeries, major or minor, medical or dental. This would enable all Americans to not have to worry about the cost of complicated medical procedures because it would be a price that would relatively reasonable for all Americans. Also the insurance companies would include even more medical and dental benefits in their benefits. “Too many people in our country are not reaching their full potential for health because of preventable conditions. Moreover, Americans receive only about half of the preventive services that are recommended” (Koh, Howard K., M.D., and Kathleen G. Sebellius, M.P.A. "Scholarly Article." Promoting Prevention Through The Affordable Care Act. The New England Journal Of Medicine, 30 Sept. 2010. Web. 15 Jan. 2017.) More procedures will be included in physicals and more medical tests would be conducted for preventive healthcare and routine diagnostic check-ups. Another Aspect that would improve the Affordable Healthcare Act better is that there would be no deadline for enrolling. Whenever anyone needed to enroll or wanted to enroll, it would

President Barrack Obama proposed the idea of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or otherwise known as ObamaCare in 2010 according to the American Public Health Association (APHA)(2014). The ACA is intended to provide health insurance to people in the United States who cannot afford it. According to Norton (2014), not very many people actually understand the new Health Care Reform, 64 percent of Americans say that they don’t understand it. Also, 40 percent of those same people said that they don’t know what an insurance deductible is either. I had to do a little research myself and found that Lalli (2013) reports that we the people of the United States will have many benefits from the ACA. The first one is ambulatory patient services. This means that you come in, they will take care of you, and then you can leave. The second benefit is prescription drugs, which means that under the ACA people will be able to afford the medicine that they need. Another benefit is emergency care, which includes visits to the emergency room for reasons such as a stroke. The fourth benefit is mental health services, which provides a limited amount of visits to professional help and will only be billed about 40 dollars for their session. The fifth benefit is hospitalization, which can be very expensive but with the ACA, people will only have to pay 20 percent of the bill. Lalli (2013) continues the list of benefits: the sixth benefit being

The propose of this article is to present the advantages and disadvantages of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare which make all Americans insurable, by requiring insurers to accept all applicants at rates based on population averages regardless of health status. The ACA increases coverage by allowing states to expand Medicaid (the social healthcare program for families and people with low income and resources) as well to cover everyone near the poverty line, and by subsidizing private insurance for people who do not get workplace coverage (Mark A Hall, Richard Lord, 2016)

The Affordable Care Act was constructed by President Obama to help transform the health care system. The Affordable Care Act is supposed to implement a system that would reduce the health care costs. This would also improve the efficiency of procedures by eliminating the denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Unfortunately, over 44 Million Americans can’t afford the cost of medical insurance, but the law grants these Americans medical insurance benefits. Before this law was in place, insurance companies could deny patients the medical attention they needed, drop their medical coverage halfway through their treatment, and have a maximum payment they prepared to pay.

If it was not bad enough that the costs for “affordable care” are not so affordable, many companies, businesses, and other places where people work, have cut their employees hours back to thirty or less in order to avoid the new health care laws. The new acts states that any employee working forty hours and up are to be insured by the employer. Many businesses either cannot pay for that, or will not leaving people with smaller paychecks to purchase their own health care as well as groceries, rent, utilities and everything else we need as Americans. Just as well if you cannot find the means to purchase health insurance which (depending on age and income) costs about $6,350 a year, you will be penalized about $900 for not purchasing. Three out of every five Americans state that they would rather take the penalty than pay so much for something that they could

The major points of Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, are they have reduced the number of uninsured families (Millman). Secondly, an individual cannot be denied insurance if they have a preexisting condition (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). Third, it has made it easier for small businesses to obtain coverage (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). Fourth, Obamacare requires the individual states to expand their Medicaid programs for low income families (Slate), and finally the Act lowers the budget deficit over the next ten years.

The Affordable Healthcare Act is has improved our health care system in many ways. One of the most obvious improvements is in America today we have more people with healthcare coverage than ever before. Per the video we have 90% of Americans have health care today, which is an increase in 20 million Americans with health insurance. Per Health and Humana services (March 2016). That part of this increase can be contributed to ACA many changes. One change in particular is allowing young adults under the age of 26 to stay on their parent’s health insurance plans. This change alone enabled 2.3 million young adults to now have affordable insurance though their parents. This change resulted in reduction of 46.5% of young adults from 2013 to 2016. In addition, Health and Humana Services statists point out that the uninsured rate for Blacks dropped more than 50% which equals 3 million black Americans now have health coverage. Health and Humana service also noted that with the Hispanic population there was also an increase of 4 million Hispanic adults obtaining coverage and an increase of 8.9 white adults obtaining health care coverage. In addition to the increased numbers of Americans obtaining insurance those who utilized their health insurance also experienced that additional preventative health service were now covered at 100% and would not go towards one’s deductible, thus forcing and individual to pay out of pocket for said services. One item that I have benefited from is

The primary goal of the Affordable Care Act was to expand health care access to Americans and subsequently reduce the number of uninsured in the nation. From September 2013 to March 2015, there was a significant reduction in uninsured Americans from 17.6% to 10.1% (Anderson, Hempstead, Karpman, Kenney, Long, Shartzer, Wissoker, Zuckerman , 2015). This was achieved through the new laws affecting private insurance and the expansion of the government’s Medicaid program. The ACA started the process by extending tax credits to an estimated 4 million small businesses that would help them provide insurance for their workers in 2010 (Implementation, 2016). In 2013, a marketplace exchange was finally opened for the American people to compare and purchase