Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act

This essay discusses the role of different types of variable that can affect the Affordable Care Act in the United States. It also discusses the effectiveness of ACA in the country and helps to determine whether it is good or bad law for the people.

Running Head: Affordable Care Act
Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act
Essay
System04104
9/30/2019

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Introduction
Patient care and Affordable Care Act was the federal statute in in the time of Barack
Obama presidency. This act is also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and it is a
major debatable topic among the US politicians. The major provisions of this act was come in
to effect from 2014 and by 2016, it covered more than 20 million people for better healthcare
in UA (Oberlander & Weaver, 2015). The intent of this act was to provide coverage to all the
people, regardless of their pre-existing health conditions, at very low and affordable cost.
However, this act is applied only on the US citizens. The present essay discusses the role of
different types of variable that can affect this healthcare act in the United States. The present
essay also discusses the effectiveness of ACA in the country and helps to determine whether
it is good or bad law for the people.
(Source: Nikpay, Buchmueller, & Levy, 2016).
As per this act, more than 30 million US citizens will be benefited whose income is
less than US $44.680. Apart from this, if a family has four member then it will be benefited

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those families whose income is less than US$92,200. However, two third of the total
population will be provided coverage benefit under this ACA act in USA (Nikpay,
Buchmueller, & Levy, 2016).
The large numbers of people under the affordable care act take the advantage if
instant healthcare benefits on very low cost. According to an estimate, because of lower
prices of the insurance and lower than expected premiums will help people to save more than
$104 billion over the next ten years. This was expected by the government at that time. Apart
from this, under this the Medicare cost was also decreased by 2020 in compare to 2010.
However, the low affordable cost of Affordable cost of care provides instant healthcare
facilities for people on very low cost. This was really a great scheme by the former president
of USA Barack Obama (Bearak, Finer, Jerman, & Kavanaugh, 2016).
(Source: The Commonwealth Fund, 2015)
There are various factors that should be consider under this act because this act
provide care and coverage to US citizens only and it is expected that most of the people take

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the advantage of this act. The 91% of adults who take the advantage of this act were satisfied
with their doctors and they get best physician for their health (Oberlander, 2017). Apart from
this, 77% people who registered under this insurance were happy to find a primary doctor for
their health check-ups and other treatment and it was also on very low cost. Apart from this,
people who get primary care doctors under this scheme were able to get an appointment with
the doctor within the two weeks. This shows the effectiveness of this law on the health of
American citizens (Blumenthal, Abrams, & Nuzum, 2015). The major debatable topic is
related to the income and expenses of people because people who earn high amount of money
in the country pay the same and equal amount of money that a low-income people. However,
somewhere it was the burden on the economy of the USA. However, the company spends
already huge amount on the healthcare of people and it is really a great help for the people
under this law. Getting healthcare benefits under this law was very cheap and people pay very
less amount of healthcare expenses but the problem related to a person who is previously
suffering from cancer or any other such type of dangerous disease and need a high amount of
money for treatment (Chuang, Mitchell, Velott, Legro, Lehman, Confer, & Weisman, 2015).
This will also affect the healthcare budget of the country and it was economically not good
for USA but for the welfare of people and ensuring better healthcare, it was an effective plan
in the country (Gaffney & McCormick, 2017).

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(Source: Munanna, C. & Brodie, 2018)
However, in the time of Donald Trump administration in USA, this scheme was
criticised by many people and politicians. According to a survey conducted by KFF, it has
been found that more than 56% of US people accepted that the Trump government want to
make this health coverage fail while 32% of people say that Trump is want to make this act
effective and workable in the country while 12% of people refused to say anything about it.
However, 47% people accept that this is really a bad thing and the Trump government should
support this ACA act because it will be beneficial for the large numbers of people (Munanna,
C. & Brodie, 2018). Although, it has been found that under this scheme, more than two third
populations of US will be benefited from this law and, it was really a great achievement for
Barack Obama. People have right to get medical and healthcare benefits on cheap and low
cost. Most of the people who cannot afford the high treatment cost cannot afford healthcare
facilities in the country. In such a scenario, the ACA will provide them better and timely
healthcare facilities on very low healthcare cost. As per humanity, it is really a great going for
the USA government but the problem is that it makes economic burden on the USA
government that is not good (Arpey, Gaglioti, & Rosenbaum, 2017). The act covers a large

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numbers of healthcare facilities for almost all citizens of USA and provides free preventive
care for Children, Young people, adults, and old age people. This act holds insurance
company liable for the rate increases and it will again a burden on the private companies.
Conclusion
Overall, this insurance policy can be beneficial for the public and citizens of USA but
it was not good for those insurance companies who bear the cost of healthcare because a
person who is already suffering from some serious kind of disease also get cover under this
act and it leads to a big loss for the insurance companies. Apart from this, it will also increase
the healthcare budget of the country that is not good for the USA economy.

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References
Arpey, N. C., Gaglioti, A. H., & Rosenbaum, M. E. (2017). How socioeconomic status
affects patient perceptions of health care: a qualitative study. Journal of primary care
& community health, 8(3), 169-175.
Bearak, J. M., Finer, L. B., Jerman, J., & Kavanaugh, M. L. (2016). Changes in out-of-pocket
costs for hormonal IUDs after implementation of the Affordable Care Act: an analysis
of insurance benefit inquiries. Contraception, 93(2), 139-144.
Blumenthal, D., Abrams, M., & Nuzum, R. (2015). The affordable care act at 5 years.
Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel_Nuzum/publication/276071131_The_Aff
ordable_Care_Act_at_5_Years/links/59ee0fa34585154350e8004e/The-Affordable-
Care-Act-at-5-Years.pdf
Chuang, C. H., Mitchell, J. L., Velott, D. L., Legro, R. S., Lehman, E. B., Confer, L., &
Weisman, C. S. (2015). Women’s awareness of their contraceptive benefits under the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. American journal of public
health, 105(S5), S713-S715.
Gaffney, A., & McCormick, D. (2017). The Affordable Care Act: implications for health-care
equity. The Lancet, 389(10077), 1442-1452.
Munanna, C. & Brodie, M. (2018). Kaiser Health Tracking Poll - July 2018: Changes to the
Affordable Care Act; Health Care in the 2018 Midterms and the Supreme Court.
Retrieved from: https://www.kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kaiser-health-
tracking-poll-july-2018-changes-to-the-affordable-care-act-health-care-in-the-2018-
midterms-and-the-supreme-court/
Nikpay, S., Buchmueller, T., & Levy, H. G. (2016). Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion
reduced uninsured hospital stays in 2014. Health Affairs, 35(1), 106-110.
Oberlander, J. (2017). The end of Obamacare. New England Journal of Medicine, 376(1), 1-
3.

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Oberlander, J., & Weaver, R. K. (2015). Unraveling from within? The affordable care act and
self-undermining policy feedbacks. The Forum, 13(1), 37-62.
The Commonwealth Fund (2015). Large Majority of Affordable Care Act Coverage
Enrollees Are Satisfied with Their Insurance, People Using Plans Are Getting Care
They Could Not Have Afforded Before. Retrieved from:
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/press-release/2015/large-majority-affordable-
care-act-coverage-enrollees-are-satisfied-their