The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act (PPACA). This is more commonly referred among United States Citizens as Health Care Reform.
This revolutionary law offers three main guarantees: First, health insurance for all American's, not just
those who can afford it; Second, cost reduction in the insurance premiums for individuals and
businesses; Lastly, higher quality care. On the surface, the PPACA seems all around beneficial for all
American's, but there are some aspects that need to be further analyzed. There is no doubt, this law will
give those who are uninsured or under-insured, better coverage and ensure better quality health care,
but there is one factor that may have been overlooked; the PPACA comes at great financial cost for
citizens, will take a decade to fully implement and will be not be sustainable for generations to come.
The PPACA has several provisions targeted specifically at aimed at cultivating our health care
system in America. (RAND, 2009). Some of the primary provisions pertain to augmenting health care
accessability and decreasing cost for citizens. The following are a few of the paramount provisions in
the PPACA:
Prevent insurance companies from denying enrollees due to current health status
All plans must be sold to anyone regardless of pre-existing health conditions
Premium costs will have
The PPACA involves many legislative changes that will affect hospital reimbursement. The PPACA requires every citizen in the United States to get health insurance and those that are noncompliant will face tax penalties. The PPACA requires all states to establish an American Health Benefit Exchange by 2014 to assure that health insurance is affordable to individuals and companies with 100 or less employees. The PPACA establishes a pay for performance program, which is a value-based purchasing (VBP) program in which Medicare pays hospitals based on their performance as compared to how they meet quality measures. Beginning in 2013 using the VBP program, hospitals will be paid based on their performance on many quality measures for acute myocardial infarction, pneumonia, heart failure, surgeries and hospital associated infections.
rehend the PPACA, one must understand the history of the United States’ health care system. The most successful and known reform would be the passage of Medicare and Medicaid. President Johnson’s main objective with his program was to provide health insurance to those over 65 years old, who otherwise wouldn’t be able to receive coverage due to retirement or being financially unfit to purchase health insurance. It has since been expanded to cover those with disabilities, and lower income families (“Overview,” 2015). Brady (2015) examines President Clinton’s attempt to massively overhaul health care in the United States. His plan, the Health Security Act (HSA), required employers to offer health insurance to their employees, and mandated that every US citizen purchase health insurance. This plan would have most likely expand health insurance to many more Americans; however, many feared the large tax increases, restricted options for patients, and with the lack of general support for the bill, it failed in Congress and was never implemented (p. 628). President Clinton’s failed attempt at health care reform opened up the door to future reforms, and it even shared multiple similarities to the PPACA. Smith (2015) updates the history of the health care system in America stating that “In the mid-2000s, America’s uninsured population swelled to nearly 47 million, representing about 16 percent of the population” and how “16 million Americans […] were underinsured” (p. 2). People
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) was designed to decrease health care costs and require health care access to all U.S. citizens. The Act has the potential for reducing the cost of health care in the United States; however, with many risks which could possibly strain the health care system, increase debt, and decrease the quality of care many are concerned.
The PPACA was structured to accomplish insurance reform through several avenues (Vincent & Reed, 2014). Medicaid program expansion and the individual mandate are two of the primary elements of healthcare insurance and finance reform (Vincent & Reed, 2014). Additionally preventative health services delivered without cost, removal of health insurance exclusions for preexisting conditions, allowing children under the age of 26 to remain on their parent’s healthcare insurance, and gradually decreasing the out of pocket costs for Medicare Part D participants are mandated by the provisions of the PPACA (Vincent & Reed, 2014).
Health is the most important thing one can have. Without good health, people cannot continue living. Thus, Congress drafted a bill called Affordable Care Act, or commonly known as Obamacare, on March 23, 2010. This new healthcare reform strategize to increase affordable healthcare insurance and lower the costs of healthcare for citizens. One important aspect of the bill is that it demand all insurance companies to cover every client despite his or her pre-existing conditions. The motto for this reform is “quality over quantity,” which means the government want to shift healthcare from higher price to higher benefits. The primary goal of the bill is to lower future government spending (Pear, Robert).
Implementing this law will not only change the health care organizations as a whole but also give people a sense of urgency that it will help them get insured so they can be provided with service when they are in dire need of care. Improving access to care should return improvement in the overall population health, increase in how the employees bring motivation and better production, and reduce the significant risk of the uninsured individuals that will give them a position as an insured model that will represent those that are insured and will able to provide service with their health care plans for their family. The health care law brings about a better change for health care providers and also to people who were previously insured. It helps out the families because they can get provider with quality care and also receive medication for any type of health issues they may have had over the years of being
There has been much, debate between supporters and opponents of the law, over the pros and cons of the PPACA. It is undoubtedly an immense piece of legislation, which affects several portions of the U.S. health care system. There are those who believe that PPACA will not decrease the various cost associated with the U.S. health system, but will cause a cost increase. According to these individual, any purported decreases to the deficit is a result of imaginative accounting on behalf of the CBO and the Obama administration. The goal of this paper is to examine the effects the PPACA on the health care system. The focus will be to give a brief overview of insurance premiums and Medicaid expansion.
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
The basic standards that was signed in law by President Obama that The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will cover all Americans to quality and affordable access care and necessary transformation within the health care system to cover costs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has established that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is completely paid for and provides coverage for the American population. The primary transformation required by health insurances are shared responsibilities that the universal insurance market uses to eliminate discrimination practices in pre-existing condition, and having all Americans gaining coverage and affordable health care. Additionally, PPACA established health outcome improvement
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 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), is a legislation designed to extend coverage to the uninsured, eliminate practices that include rescission and denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions, and lower health care costs. Moreover, the PPACA provides incentives to businesses to offer health insurance or impose penalties on business that do not provide coverage, and require individuals without health insurance to purchase reasonably priced polices through health insurance exchanges (Martocchio, 2014, p. 143). This health reform legislation was taken into effect in 2010, and is expected to complete implementation over the next few years.
These pros and cons can be revealed through a cost-benefit analysis. At the time the legislation was set into place, there were approximately 45 million uninsured. In order to make health insurance available and affordable to this uninsured population, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the costs would be about $1.6 trillion. Of this $1.6 trillion, $1.2 trillion would be allocated towards subsidies, and $642 billion towards Medicaid expansion. With costs in the trillions, a large controversy is centered on whether these expenditures are worth it, especially since a relatively small fraction of the total U.S. population wholesomely benefits from the ACA.
“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law March 23rd, 2010 and upheld by a Supreme Court ruling on June 28, 2012” (Obama Health Care Summary n.d., para. 2). Before the law, insurance companies were able to pick and choose whom they gave coverage to and premiums would hit the rooftop for the policyholders. This worked in favor of the big insurance companies, but not for the American families. The law makes insurance affordable to all. As described in the Obama health care summary, under the law health insurance companies can no longer put a lifetime cap on essential health benefits. The law also provides a wide range preventive care services to customers for free. According to Obama health care summary, 54 million Americans got at least one free preventive care service, which is huge increase in number and ensures Americans that the law in fact provides what is promises in terms of preventive services. Before the law, big insurance companies used premiums for company overhead CEO salaries, but the law requires the customers get more value for their premium. As
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama, on March 23rd, 2010 (Buppert, 2015). This historic piece of health care reform legislation is scheduled for implementation over a four-year period. The legislation was created to make sure that all American residents have access to quality, affordable health care and will create the transformation within the health care system necessary to contain costs (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, n.d.). There are nine primary components for this reform. These include: affordable health
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA)is a highly complex and multifaceted policy in addition to being political controversial. Changes made to the law by subsequent legislation, focuses on provisions to expand coverage, control health care costs, and improve health care delivery system.