Importance of Health Insurance: Benefits, Impacts, and Penalties

This article discusses the importance of health insurance, its benefits, impacts, and penalties. It covers the Affordable Care Act, financial advantages, and health impacts of being uninsured. It also explains the health insurance penalty and the recent changes in the law.

HEALTH INSURANCE
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INTRODUCTION
Health insurance is an insurance service that provides medical and surgical expenditures for an
insured person. By appraising the whole risk of healthcare and health system expenditures over the
risk pool, an insured person can create a monotonous finance model, like a monthly premium to
deliver the money to pay for the healthcare aids stated in the insurance contract (Finkelstein,
Mahoney & Notowidigdo, 2018).
HEALTH IMPACTS
Uninsured people do not get proper and adequate
access to health care compared to the people who
have health insurance. In a report, it was seen that
one in every six people who did not have insurance
were living without proper medical care due to cost.
Different articles repetitively indicated that the
people who did not have insurance are less likely to
receive appropriate medical and preventive
treatments for severe health conditions and chronic
diseases (Garfield, Damico & Orgera, 2016).
Uninsured people generally receive excessive
medical bills when they seek medical care. In the
report, it was stated that the population of
nonelderly adults who did not get their insurance
were over twice compared to the insured
counterparts to have had problems paying medical
bills in the past 12 months. These medical bills can
quickly turn into medical debt since most of the
nonelderly adults who did not get their insurance
have moderate incomes and have little savings
(Garfield, Damico & Orgera, 2016).
“Uninsured during the year” comprise
of the population who were not insured
during time of survey or had a
limitation in coverage during the past
12 months.
“Private coverage” comprises of
people who were registered for the
employer plans, marketplace plans, or
plans bought directly off of the
marketplaces (Gunja et al., 2017).
AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
This healthcare act was enacted on March
2010 (HealthCare.gov, 2019). The ACA
consist of three important goals-
 To provide affordable health insurance
to everybody. The act provides the
customers with subsidies, which reduce
the cost for households of federal
poverty stage with incomes in between
100 to 400 percent.
 Enhance and promotes the Medicaid
program for individuals of federal
poverty stage whose income are below
138 percent.
 Assist advanced medical care
distribution techniques planned to
reduce the costs of health care
(HealthCare.gov, 2019).

HEALTH INSURANCE PENALTY
Earlier according to the Affordable Care Act, people who did not have any health insurance had to pay
penalties. However, a tax bill was passed by the Congress in the year 2017, which prescribed that the
health insurance penalty should be eliminated. The new law was enacted in the year 2019
(Blumenthal, Abrams & Nuzum, 2015).
As per the new rules, individuals can apply for a hardship exemption that will excuse them from
taking a health insurance only if they (Blumenthal, Abrams & Nuzum, 2015):
1. Stay in a region where marketplace plans are not available.
2. Stay in a region where marketplace plans are sold by only one individual.
3. Cannot find a reasonable marketplace plan that does not covers abortion.
4. Till 2018, it was mandatory for individuals to pay a fee called Individual Shared Responsibility
Payment when paying the federal taxes if they did not apply for health insurance. However,
since the 2019 plan year, the Individual Shared Responsibility Payment has been removed.
5. Though, the states might consider state taxes from an individual if they do not have a health
coverage, though the states wants an individual to have one (HealthCare.gov, 2019).
CONCLUSION
It is important for every family to have a health insurance since uninsured individuals
receive few medical services compared to insured individuals. When an uninsured
individual are affected by illness or any injury, they receive high health expenses
compared to the income they receive. On median, uninsured females and their babies
obtain less prenatal care and less costly perinatal facilities. Uninsured females are more
probable to have bad results during childbirth than the insured females. It is important for
an individual to purchase a healthcare insurance since medical care is very expensive in
the private sector. During hospitalization, it can burn a hole in the individual's pocket and
overturn their finances.
FINANCIAL ADVANTAGES
With the help of health insurance access to funds would be easy. An individual can
go for treatment with the confidence that there won’t be any shortage of resources for
the medical expenses(Wong et al., 2015).
When a person owns a health insurance policy he will not be afraid of any illness that
will make the person physically ill and financially short. This will put a positive
effect on the person’s work and family life (Wong et al., 2015).

REFERENCE
Blumenthal, D., Abrams, M., &Nuzum, R. (2015).The affordable care act at 5 years.
Finkelstein, A., Mahoney, N., &Notowidigdo, M. J. (2018). What does (formal) health
insurance do, and for whom?. Annual Review of Economics, 10, 261-286.
Garfield, R., Damico, A., &Orgera, K. (2016). The coverage gap: Uninsured poor adults in
states that do not expand Medicaid. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Gershon, R. (2017). Health Policy and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Commonwealth Medicine
Publications, 175.
Gunja, M. Z., Collins, S. R., Blumenthal, D., Doty, M. M., & Beutel, S. (2017). How Medicaid
Enrollees Fare Compared with Privately Insured and Uninsured Adults.
HealthCare.gov. (2019). Affordable Care Act (ACA). Retrieved 4 October 2019, from
https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/affordable-care-act/
HealthCare.gov. (2019). Individual Mandate Penalty You Pay If You Don't Have Health
Insurance Coverage. Retrieved 4 October 2019, from
https://www.healthcare.gov/fees/fee-for-not-being-covered/
Sommers, B., Gawande, A., & Baicker, K. (2017). Health Insurance Coverage and Health —
What the Recent Evidence Tells Us. New England Journal of Medicine, 377(6), 586-
593.
Wong, C. A., Asch, D. A., Vinoya, C. M., Ford, C. A., Baker, T., Town, R., & Merchant, R. M.
(2015).Seeing health insurance and HealthCare.gov through the eyes of young