The Health Information Exchange

In 2010, the United States created The Affordable Care Act (ACA). The objective was to share the responsibility of costs between the government, individuals, and employers to provide affordable access to quality health insurance. “However, health coverage remains fragmented, with numerous private and public sources, as well as wide gaps in insured rates across the U.S. population.” (“United States: International Health Care System Profiles,” n.d.). Each individual state within the US, generally has control over private insurance.

In today’s day and age, American households can all agree that health insurance is not a luxury, but a necessity. Without it, costs of emergency room visits and prescription medicines can be financially devastating. However, in the past many families and individuals have taken the risk of not being insured due to the high cost of the insurance itself. To attempt to reform this unfair system, the Obama administration signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. The law, coined “Obamacare,” has received much opposition due to its expansion government programs and increase in spending. It brings to question how much the government should be involved in an area that for the majority of America’s history, has been

Questions are constantly circulating around the new Affordable Care Act. Many do not know what it does and the government is trying to make it out to be a big savior to the medical field for doctors and patients alike. The Affordable Care Act has also been given the name Obamacare because of its ties to the President. He believes that increasing the amount of people on insurances of any kind that meets his “standards” will help health care become more available and more profitable. Unfortunately, these claims are not true as Obamacare is clearly going to negatively impact health care in all aspects. The problems start for patients who get on government healthcare programs, such as Medicaid, with the fact that the treatment plans are extremely

It has been one year since the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Despite countless Republican attempts to repeal all or part of the new law, it is still with us and shows no sure signs of disintegration. The rollout of the government’s health care exchanges experienced significant growing pains right from the beginning. Time has fixed many of these technical glitches, but has done little to quell the debate over the affordability and viability of the law.

“Obamacare”, or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), was a law developed to help provide affordable, quality healthcare insurance to everyone and reduce spending on healthcare by the general public (ObamacareFacts, n.d., (5)). Healthcare costs and coverage has been an ongoing struggle in the United States. It came with many new sub-laws affecting healthcare insurance providers and consumers, as well as new benefits to affect current and future healthcare insurances. Obamacare is currently still in effect.

The concept of a centralized health insurance marketplace was a critical aspect to the success of the program. President Obama wanted the website to support residents of states that did not develop their own state exchanges based on the law by offering fair, affordable and competitive options (Stolberg & Pear, 2010). The goal of the website was to facilitate the sale of private insurance plans to U.S. residents.

Obamacare is an unofficial name for the Patient Protection and ACA (Affordable Care Act) which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010. The White House announced that in the first month, more than 100,000 Americans successfully enrolled in new insurance plans (The New America). That’s not even close to a quarter of the United States population. There have been problems with the website when it crashed. This prevented many Americans from completing the enrollment process. Which put a big hurt on the AC. But there is no question that there is a real demand for quality, affordable health insurance. In the first month, nearly a million people successfully completed an application for themselves or their families. An estimated amount 396,000 citizens have the ability to gain access to Medicaid under the Affordable Care

Healthcare in the United States is in a crisis situation. Healthcare costs are rising to the point where people are required to pay their health insurance premiums and deductibles over having enough money to cover groceries to feed the family. It seems our government is at odds in terms of the success with the Affordable Care Act and the outcomes we are witnessing from its’ implementation in our country. Many Americans understand the incentives of having healthcare insurance coverage and the benefits it can provide. With so many more individuals entering the healthcare insurance marketplace due to the guidelines of the Affordable Care Act we also see an impact to the supply and demand of healthcare availability and healthy outcomes.

There were multiple technical problems with the Affordable Care Act website (known as Healthcare.gov). In order for people to purchase their health insurance, and understand pertinent health insurance policies, the website needs enhancements. Most recently, since November 2014, changes have been made to the Healthcare.gov website in order to stem other challenges. For instance, there is less information that new users will have to enter to register for health insurance (Ydstie, 2014). Initially, issues challenges that slowed the Healthcare.gov website had included bandwidth issues, synchronization issues, support issues, application issues, support issues, requirements definition issues, support issues and security issues.

In the fall of 2013, insurance companies cancelled health plans for millions of people. This created a political storm for the President as he had promised insurance coverage for all. The President announced that health plans that would have cancelled under the ACA could be continued by insurance companies. This announcement did not go down well with the insurance companies and refused to accept blame for cancellation of health plans. Several states said that plans not compiling with the ACA are below standard and they will not accept late renewals. The federal government’s website Healthcare.gov to buy plans was supposed to be easy to navigate. But on the day of its launch the website users had to face delays and malfunction codes. This huge and consistent problem with the website created negative news and prevented users from accessing the website to purchase health insurance

Health care cost has been constantly rising and a problem in this country for years. Millions go without much needed medical care every year due to the lack of health care. For many the emergency room is their first contact with medical care. The Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA) intends to significantly decrease the number of uninsured in American. The PPACA, is said to be most comprehensive insurance reform since 1965, (the year in which Medicare and Medicaid were implemented) was signed into law on March 23, 2010 by President Obama. PPACA will renovate the entire United States’ insurance market. PPACA requires most citizens to either purchase health care coverage privately or through their employer, or face a penalty.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) signed into law by president Obama on March 23, 2010 is arguably the most extensive reform of health care law ever to be enacted in the U.S. It will impact the way professionals practice health care, the way insurance companies handle health care as a product, and the way consumers purchase and use health care as a service. The Affordable Health Care Act is primarily aimed at reducing the number of uninsured Americans and reducing the overall costs of health care from an administrative and consumer standpoint. The PPACA requires insurance companies to cover all applicants and offer the same rates to all applicants of the same age

In the first quarter of 2016 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) legislation has lead to 20 million Americans gaining healthcare coverage, and a record low uninsured rate of 8.6 percent (U. S. Department of Health & Human Services [DHHS], 2016). Yet the verdict is out on whether the PPACA has been an improvement or a liability holding back the United States (US) healthcare system’s potential. The legislation was first integrated as a guide to the US healthcare system when it was signed by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 (Rosenbaum, 2011). It planned to fulfill goals of improving access, affordability, and quality in healthcare (U. S. Department of Health & Human Services [DHHS], 2015). Full implementation of the healthcare reform was established on January 1, 2014, marking the start of individual and employer responsibility provisions, state health insurance exchanges, Medicaid expansions, and individual and small-employer group subsidies (Rosenbaum, 2011). As a whole the PPACA intended to “reframe the financial relationship between Americans and the health-care system to stem the health insurance crisis that has enveloped individuals, families, communities, the health-care system, and the national economy” (Rosenbaum, p. 131, para. 2). While the legislation has not fully

Health insurance and the affordable care act is a major topic in the United States today. This being said, there are many questions that run through one’s mind when the topic is discussed. Questions such as, what exactly is health insurance? What is the Aetna-Humana merge, and how beneficial is it? Should healthy citizens help pay for citizens with prior known health issues? Should people with preexisting conditions even have the option to purchase insurance to help cover medical cost? Although the Affordable Care Act has been in effect for a few years now, there are still some problems today the health insurers face because of this law.

HealthCare.gov is a health insurance exchange website operated under the United States federal government under the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, often known as 'Obamacare '), designed to serve the residents of the thirty-six U.S. states that opted not to create their own state exchanges. The exchange facilitates the sale of private health insurance plans to residents of the United States and offers subsidies to those who earn less than four times the federal poverty line. The website also assists those persons who are eligible to sign up for Medicaid, and has a separate marketplace for small businesses.