A Detailed Review of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act

This essay provides an analysis of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, enacted during Barack Obama's presidency, as a reconciliation bill to complement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The act aimed to address healthcare and student loan reforms, modifying aspects of the Affordable Care Act, such as delaying taxes on Cadillac Health-Care plans, ensuring reimbursements for doctors treating Medicare patients, and adjusting penalties for delayed insurance purchases. The essay emphasizes the act's relevance to low-income earners by lowering penalties and supporting Medicare doctors. It identifies insurers, hospitals, and healthcare workers as key stakeholders, highlighting the potential financial impacts and varying perspectives on the act's effectiveness in providing affordable healthcare. The essay concludes that the act played a vital role in ensuring access to affordable healthcare for all citizens.

Running Head: The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 1
The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010
Name
University Affiliation

Running Head: The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 2
The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010
The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 was signed into law during the
presidency of Barrack Obama on March 2010. I chose this act because it was chosen as a
reconciliation bill that was supposed to cater to the budget when the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act was passed into law. The act was supposed to provide for matters of
healthcare and education (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2013). It covered
President Barack Obama's goals where he wanted to tackle both healthcare and student loans.
The bill was passed in the House of Representatives by getting 178 Republican votes and
33Decomcrats voting against its passage. When it was taken to the Senate which was initially
against it, amendments were made, and two provisions were struck out. It meant that the bill had
to be sent back to the House to deal with the reconciliation rules which it had violated in its
budgeting.
The purpose of Act was to address the health care reform, and the other was to discuss the
student loan reform. This paper will focus more on the healthcare aspect (Albright et al. 2011).
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which had been passed into law seven days
before the Health Care Act had some of its aspects changed. The changes included delaying to
implement the taxing of Cadillac Health-Care plans until the year 2018, doctors who were in
charge of Medicare patients to get their reimbursements, lowering the cost of penalty for those
who delayed buying insurance from $750 to $695, increasing the tax credits required to purchase
insurance and ensuring that there was a Medicare tax put for families who had their earnings
above the $250,000 mark annually (Hansen et al. 2011).
I chose this act because from a personal perspective it highlights the plight of the low-income
earners of the United States. It acknowledges that there are citizens who may not be able to

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afford the healthcare packages of Medicare in time. It lowers the penalties involved. It also cared
for the doctors who dealt with patients who were from the Medicare scheme by giving them
reimbursements.
The three stakeholders I would interview after reading the act are the insurers, the hospitals, and
the healthcare workers. It is because they have a one on one relationship with the policy and their
insight into matters affecting the policy are based on ground research (Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services, 2011). Starting with the insurers, a government study by Bloomberg showed
that if the act was stopped by the supreme court the America's Health Insurance Plans(AHIP) and
the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association were to lose $1 trillion up to the year 2020. The hospitals
who are essential stakeholders did research on the Act and how it affected them. The American
Hospital Association together with five other hospital associations reported that in 2009 alone
uncompensated care from hospitals amounted to $39 billion. These were huge losses for the
hospitals brought by the act. The healthcare workers who were represented by the American
Academy of Pediatrics and American Nurses Association praised the bill for providing primary
healthcare to patients. In conclusion, the act was vital in ensuring that affordable healthcare is
accorded to all citizens.

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References
Albright, H. W., Moreno, M., Feeley, T. W., Walters, R., Samuels, M., Pereira, A., & Burke, T.
W. (2011). The implications of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and
the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act on cancer care
delivery. Cancer, 117(8), 1564-1574.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), HHS. (2011). Medicare program; hospital
inpatient value-based purchasing program. Final rule. Federal register, 76(88), 26490.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HHS. (2013). Medicare program; hospital
inpatient prospective payment systems for acute care hospitals and the long-term care
hospital prospective payment system and Fiscal Year 2014 rates; quality reporting
requirements for specific providers; hospital conditions of participation; payment policies
related to patient status. Final rules. Federal Register, 78(160), 50495.
Hansen, L. O., Young, R. S., Hinami, K., Leung, A., & Williams, M. V. (2011). Interventions to
reduce 30-day rehospitalization: a systematic review. Annals of internal
medicine, 155(8), 520-528.