Introduction
In 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It has been the first attempt to reform the US medical system since the 1960s when the Medicare and Medicaid programs were created to help pensioners and poor citizens. The act has affected many institutes and social groups, including health systems, individuals, and private and public companies. The purpose of this essay is to consider how ACA affects both private and public sectors and analyze the act’s impact from the perspective of its influence on population-based medical care.
Affordable Care Act
Under ACA, citizens who do not have insurance coverage have the opportunity to choose it according to their needs and capacity. ACA ruled to expand Medicaid coverage with federal dollars up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level for every state (Garfield, Orgera, & Damico, 2020). On the one hand, the expansion may be too compulsory for states because of limited budgets. On the other hand, according to Broaddus and Perk (2016), the number of uninsured citizens fell from around 41 million to 29 million from 2013 to 2015. Thus, ACA may lead to increased demand for both private health insurance and the public one, meaning that more people are insured.
Under ACA, people whose companies do not offer a qualifying plan and who meet specific income requirements can get a subsidy. Also, to make sure everyone can find coverage, the government launches state-by-state health insurance marketplaces (Broaddus & Perk, 2016, para. 3). The marketplaces are designed to be used by citizens to shop for and buy health insurance that is the most affordable for them. Thus, ACA establishes new ways to pay for community-based resources to keep people at home where they want to be instead of hospitals. Moreover, ACA does not allow insurance companies to deny coverage, even if a potential purchaser has a pre-existing condition (Aron-Dine, 2017). It means that the act makes companies more transparent and accessible to the public.
Conclusion
The impact of ACA health reform has both its benefits and drawbacks. From the perspective of public-based nursing, the act supports the transition of care from institutions back into the community. It also allows more people to have insurance regardless of their income, and health state. On the other hand, the act may lead to a possible budgetary drain on both federal and state levels.
References
Aron-Dine, A. (2017). $8 Billion Comes Nowhere Close to Meeting Republican Commitments to People with Pre-Existing Conditions. Web.
Broaddus M., & Perk A. (2016). Affordable Care Act Has Produced Historic Gains in Health Coverage. Web.
Garfield, R., Orgera, K., & Damico A. (2020). Adults in States that Do Not Expand Medicaid. Web.