Affordable Care Act Essay Paper
After reading the Kaiser Family Foundation summary on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, state why or why not you believe the act should remain in law, or which pieces should be reversed. Then describe two pieces of the act that you were unaware was part of the act and how that may affect you as a citizen
Affordable care act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is perhaps one of the most revolutionary health care legislations during Obama’s tenure as the US President. It was intended to overhaul the health care sector through reducing the cost of accessing health care even as it improved overall access. Before the ACA come into effect, accessing health care in the country was a problem for most citizens since public health care funds was wastefully spent while health insurance was inaccessible to poor population. In essence, ACA has restricted the increasing public health care expenditure, improved the workforce in the health care industry, improved industry quality and performance, and emphasized prevention and public wellness services. Also, it has improved consumer protection for persons who use insurance, reformed the health insurance sector, and expanded public health access, particularly allowing the 32 million persons without insurance to have access to health care (Patel & Rushefsky, 2015). Having improved health care access, reduced costs and improved care delivery as well as quality, it is clear that ACA should remain in law.
Two aspects of ACA were previously obscured but are not clearer. The first aspect is reforms to the health insurance industry. The reforms have increase health insurance options through improving accountability by supporting members run non-profit consumer operated and oriented plans for small business organizations and individuals without having to present a public health insurance option. The second aspect is that the act addresses the existing racial and ethnic health disparities. This has occurred through providing $11 billion supplementary funds for projects that address these disparities to include community-based medical facilities while also training and recruiting persons from ethnic and racial minorities (Emanuel, 2014). The two aspects affect me as a citizen by providing me with more insurance options and ensuring care equality.
References
Emanuel, E. (2014). Reinventing American health care: how the Affordable Care Act will improve our terrible complex, blatantly unjust, outrageously expensive, grossly inefficient, error prone system. New York, NY: Public Affairs Publications.
Patel, K. & Rushefsky, M. (2015). Healthcare politics and policy in America (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Affordable Care Act Essay Paper