The Affordable Care Act
For several decades now, the United States’ health care system has undergone a concatenation of advancements and alterations to bring forth a myriad of efficacious and worthwhile medical regulations and legislative policies. The health care system is a cardinal institution in any society. The efforts set towards redefining medical care policies have a few objectives as the bedrock of operations. These objectives include molding a customer-centered care system, setting prominence on prevention, promotion, early screening of maladies, retrenchment of inequity, abating health care costs, and invigorating the quality of care while working homing in on the augmentation of safety and accountability. Regardless of the perspicuous health care objectives and the incessant ameliorations, the United States is yet to have a satisfactory care system. There are still innumerable citizens who can neither afford nor access proper health care services, while others have no form of medical coverage. Therefore, the Affordable Care Act’s enactment is an attestation of deplorable attempts to streamline the health care system.
The Development of ACA
The financing system of the United States health care structure is habitually adjudged as a well-established failure. This is because the country’s healthcare system has so far evinced that it is unfit or incapacitated to curb the rapidly up surging costs in medical care. The shortfall of a rationalized balance in public and private medical insurance coverage exacerbates the citizen’s dissatisfaction with the government’s strategies to take charge of the indispensable social institution. The spiraling disapprobation of the public prompted the development of the issue and policy as a public agenda. However, it is essential to note that this was not the first time the public and government officials attempted to address health care concerns by employing an approach similar to that of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). For about seventy-five years, various American democratic presidents endeavored to forge a comprehensive medical indemnity system to no avail. In the ampleness of time, president Barrack Obama accomplished the Affordable Care Act’s enactment in the third month of 2010. This led to the nicknaming of the act as Obamacare.
Feasibly, the systems model of devising public policy was pivotal to creating the Affordable Care Act. The systems model intuits the process of policymaking as cyclical and hinges on inferences that serve as the substrate for information theory. These inferences include output, input, and feedback. There are various suppositions necessary in the usance of the systems model. Case in point, officials operating the systems model ought to consider the environment, structure of the political system, the level of influence the environment holds in the political system, how the political system gets to handle the feedback, among other considerations. In this case, the environment refers to the nation’s demographic, natural resources, culture, the economic capacities of the state, social structure, and the available technology. The environment has the power to infiltrate and reverberate the political system by making demands and providing feedback for a variety of input.
Correspondingly, the process of cultivating and enacting the Affordable Care Act is outlined by the constituents of the systems model of policymaking. To begin with, the political system analyzed and understood the fundamental need for proper medical care services, thus embarking on the burgeoning of a health care policy that will address health care needs in their entirety. The system delves deeper into understanding the demographics and opted to accede children to remain under the medical insurance coverage up to twenty-six. Also, the system sought to grapple with improved medical care and accountability among the providers. Cost is another sensitive aspect that the political system set their sights on. Based on the perquisites of medical insurance, the system set a compulsory rule that all individuals in the state should be insured medically, publicly, or privately notwithstanding while Medicaid eligibility got expanded. In the same breath, insurance companies got disallowed from excluding citizens from coverage based on the already existing medical conditions. Thirdly, the affordable care act was implemented in consonance with the systems policymaking model since feedback incessantly influences the political system’s approaches and decisions on the act. In the wake of a perfervid reaction to the act, the power system made a few major alterations to the act. The Congress deracinated the penalty for not being medically insured in December 2017.
Reaction and Impact of the ACA
The Affordable Care Act is one of the most impugned public policies in United States history. For this reason, it is imperative to reconnoiter the advocators for the act as well as the dissenters of the act while assessing the equivocating parties. Members of the United States Democratic Party were at the avant-garde in pushing for the enactment of the affordable care act. According to this supporting group, the ACA is the pathway towards creating a future characterized by reduced costs in health care and a nationwide health care coverage. The Democrats asserted that the act was particularly effective for citizens suffering from preexisting maladies. Libertarians and Republicans, on the other hand, have remained inexorable in their quest to do away with or repeal the affordable care act. Apart from the amended mandatory medical coverage, this contender group feels like the federal should be less convoluted on health care matters. The enactment of the ACA also came with increased taxation that the contenders are strongly objected to.
The Affordable Care Act has impacted different people and areas in a myriad of ways. For instance, most citizens now possess medical coverage. Persons with preexisting medical issues can now enjoy the benefits of coverage. However, citizens have to bear with the reverberations of increased taxation consequently. These premium tax credits bring down the monthly expenditure in medical bills. Business establishments have also been affected by the policy since any organization with fifty or more employees is mandated to accommodate medical coverage for all the employees. Ergo, most businesses are cutting down on hours and full-time employees in a bid to cut on employee expenditure. Besides businesses and citizens, health care providers are the other American group affected by the affordable care act. Obamacare has made health care quite accessible and affordable for most people. The ease in access to medical care translates to augmented workload. However, health care practitioners and institutions are now subject to more obdurate regulations since the affordable care act puts more emphasis on accountability performance. ACA has hardened the regulations stipulated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Despite having an increased workload, health care providers ought to guarantee positive outcomes, refrain from malpractice, ameliorate care quality, and generate patient satisfaction. Failure to attain these objectives results in bargain-basement reimbursements.
ACA Performance Evaluation
The health care sector can be depicted as a labyrinthine system, a characteristic that explains why most people find it laborious to fully comprehend the regulations or policies set to streamline the system. Therefore, the fact that the Affordable Care Act’s conflagrations are divisible along political party lines may make the Obama care controversy appear as a political rivalry rather than a quest for the creation of the most efficacious health care system. Regardless of these possibilities, impartiality is the key to the successful analysis of the act, its shortcomings, positive outcomes, and opportunities. The affordable care act has hit significant milestones in health care in spite of the continued fight against it. For instance, the paying for value systems has so far proven effective, and the public reports on performance data have prompted health care providers to enhance the quality of care delivered. Similarly, public policy has registered several failures. These failures include the augmented deductibles in salaries, more expensive insurance premiums, the presence of uninsured citizens, as well as increased taxation rates, especially for individuals with higher income. There are various approaches that the current Republican government can take in the amelioration and the amendment rather than begin the process of repealing and setting up a new policy. One of the approaches would be to expand the subsidies or the medical insurance marketplaces to facilitate flexibility and access to competitive packages for all citizens. The health savings accounts can also be drawn out. In addition, the policy can offer employers pliancy on the payment of workforce health coverage.
In summation, the Affordable Care Act is one of the disputed public policies in the history of American health legislation. While the act’s supporters sought to address some key issues in medical care that have scourged the United States for years, their attempts to advocate for the act have been met by calls for repeals. Admittedly, the act possesses several shortcomings. For instance, the enactment of the ACA has brought about increased taxation and higher premium credits. On the other hand, the policy has improved accountability, quality of care, the inclusion of citizens with preexisting illnesses in medical coverage, and easier access to all health care services. Apart from repealing the policy, advocating for flexibility and ameliorations can be a strategy to improve the country’s health care system. Offering civil education on the subject will grant many citizens to understand the concept before accepting or disputing the act fully.
Bibliography
Anjali Dogra and Todd Dorman, “Critical Care Implications of the Affordable Care Act,” Critical Care Medicine 44, no. 3 (2017): 168-173.
Adrianna McIntyre and Zirui Song, “The US Affordable Care Act: Reflections and Directions at the Close of a Decade,” PLOS Medicine 16, no. 2 (2019): 2-5.
Robert Sade, “The Health Care Reform Law (PPACA): Controversies in Ethics and Policy,” The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 40, no. 3 (2012): 523–525.
Jenny Stewart and Russell Ayres, “Systems Theory and Policy Practice: An Exploration,” Policy Sciences 34, no. 1 (2001): 79-94.
Davidson, Stephen M. A New Era in the U.S. Health Care: Critical Next Steps under the Affordable Care Act. Stanford Briefs, 2013.
Faguet, Guy B. The Affordable Care Act: A Missed Opportunity, a Better Way Forward. New York: Algora Pub., 2013.
Maxwell, Nan L. The Health and Wealth of a Nation Employer-Based Health Insurance and the Affordable Care Act. Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Inst. for Employment Research, 2012.