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The Health Care Reform Act

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The Health Care Reform Act is also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law by President Barrack Obama on March 23, 2010, (Touhy & Jett, 2014, p. 111). Its goals are to expand coverage, control health care costs, and improve the health care delivery system. It focuses on health promotion and greater emphasis on preventive care. The new legislation allows people and small businesses to purchase health insurance coverage through the health insurance market places—a virtual insurance mega mall where private insurers compete for business. The market exchange ensures that insures follow strict guidelines and compete fairly allowing people the opportunity to compare plans that best suits their needs.
The law mandates every U.S …show more content…

Moreover, insurers are mandated to cover and provide certain preventive services such as vaccinations without additional charge. The ACA is projected to provide an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans access to health care insurance resulting in more people seeking medical care. As a result of this policy, the demand for nurses is projected to grow at a higher rate (Spetz, 2014). In addition, nurses are confronted with critical changes in health care such as providing efficient and high quality care while keeping the cost affordable. According to Vincent & Reed (2014), the policy plans to enhance the role and expand opportunities in nursing. The law provides funding to expand the number of advance practice nurses and providers. Some experts claim that the growing number of people seeking medical care will not become an issue with the projected nursing workforce due to the many opportunities for expansion as part of the ACA’s provision. In another view, the shortage of Registered Nurses (RN) is projected to intensify as the Baby Boomers age and the need for health care rises in addition to the increasing number of uninsured people that have access to health insurance. Therefore, the increase of patient load due to the extension of health care coverages to millions of previously uninsured people as a result of the ACA will be unmanageable for nurses.
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