Introduction
The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) has been amended by Health & Education reconciliation act and fully implemented from the 1st of January, 2014. The Affordable Health Care Act is the public health policy of the US that assists vulnerable groups to access quality healthcare (Zhao et al., 2020). This law has provided numerous protection and rights for making health coverage more accessible and fairer to understand and subsidiaries through cost-sharing reductions and premium tax credits affordable (Ramalingam et al., 2021). After implementing the law, the employers started to be effective by initiating state operations leading to the health insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansions. As a result, the Act started to be effective, and the small employer and individual group subsidiaries started to begin their flow (Courtemanche et al., 2020). Affordable Health Care is a successful initiative that aims at improving the quality and efficiency of health care by enacting policies that protect the patients.
Overview of the Act
The Act has been established to provide essential and legal protection, which was absent till the implementation of the law. Thus, the Affordable Health Care Act provides a near-universal guarantee for access to health insurance, which is affordable from birth to retirement. With a series of revisions and the extension of the multiple laws that comprise the federal legal framework for the healthcare system of the US, the Affordable Health Care Act establishes legal protection (Takvorian et al., 2020). After implementing the law, the employer and individual it is everyone’s responsibility to start effective with state health insurance operation. For instance, insurance Exchanges, Medicaid expansions also started to be effective, and the small employer and individual group subsidiaries started to begin flow. It has been estimated that when the Affordable Health Care Act gets fully implemented, the Act will be cut the uninsured American number to more than half. The Affordable Health Care Act will also cover health insurance for 94% of the population of America, thus reducing the number of uninsured Americans by 31millions (Zhao et al., 2020). This law also increases Medicaid enrollment by 15 million of the American population. Therefore, according to the previous survey, only 24 million of the American population are expected to be left uninsured (Zhao et al., 2020). After considering ten separate titles of the legislative, the Affordable Health Care Act has several principal aims.
The main aim of the Act is to achieve the near-universal coverage of insurance, and it will be done with the sharing of the responsibility among employers, individuals, and the government. The second most crucial aim is the improvement of the affordability, quality, and fairness of health insurance coverage (Chu et al., 2020). The third aim includes improving the efficiency, quality, and value of healthcare and thus reducing wasteful spending and making the healthcare systems more accountable for a wide range of patients. The fourth aim includes strengthening the accessibility to primary health care and bringing long-term changes for availing the preventive and primary health care (Haeder, 2020). The final and fifth aim is to make a strategic investment in the public’s health by expanding the community investment and clinical preventive care. Thus, the Universal health care Act coverage that ACA aims to achieve will alleviate the health issues and reduce the deaths related to poor service delivery.
Impact on the Health Care Policy
The Affordable Health Care Act, or Obamacare, has been the monumental change in the healthcare policy of the US after the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in the year 1965 (Zhao et al., 2020). With the enactment of the ACA, various claims arise about the Act’s success or failure. The Act has three primary goals: to increase the number of insured Americans, improve the quality of care, and reduce healthcare costs (Mcintyre & Song, 2019). One vital discussion point identifies the distinction between access and affordability, the core values in healthcare, and indicators of poor or good healthcare practices. Health insurances are the financial mechanism used as health care, and access is referred to as the process for obtaining health care.
The Affordable Health Care Act widens the gap between providing the mechanism for paying the healthcare for the patients and receiving it contrary to its primary objective of bridging the gap. The ACA has been applauded to increase the insured American number, which has resulted in over 200 million (Mcintyre & Song, 2019). The majority of Healthcare policies are based on the expansion of Medicaid, resulting in a 13 million coverage increase (Zhao et al., 2020). At the same time, Affordable Health Care Act has not worked well for the middle class and working population receiving less support. This Act helps the population who earns more than four hundred percent of the federal poverty level and constitutes 40% of the population who is not receiving any help (Takvorian et al., 2020). Thus, as a result, the exchange enrolment becomes a Disappointment with the worker percentage receiving the health benefits from the employers have decreased efficiently. Healthcare access has started to get uneven, and pupation on Medicaid is hampered due to the narrow network.
Importance of the Affordable Health Care Act
ACA or Obamacare frames the financial relationship between the healthcare system and the Americans for steaming the health insurance crisis enveloping communities, families, individuals, the health care system, and the national economy. The ACA act is the reinventions of Americans’ relationship to health insurance which lies in the battle of legality over the law’s constitutionality (Chu et al., 2020). Along with establishing shared responsibility and universal coverage, the Affordable Health Care Act has been setting federal standards that limit the exploitation of the patients (Mcintyre & Song, 2019). The health insurers offer the products to both small group markets and individuals along with the health benefits that the employers sponsor.
The Affordable Health Care Act has also encouraged employers to undertake wellness activities at the workplace, promoting and incentivizing actual health outcomes. For instance, employers must ensure that their workers have insurance cover with updated data to get services in illness or accident. In addition, the wellness activities are not required to be limited for the Act of participation in the weakness programs (Courtemanche et al., 2020). However, the ACA also includes incentives to achieve improved health results.
Beyond subsidizing coverage and regulating the group health planning market and insurance, Affordable Health Care Act has created the exchanges of state health insurance for businesses and individuals. After creating the one-stop for the shopping market, the exchanges must simplify and maintain health insurance (Chu et al., 2020). In insurance products that qualify for the subsidies are under federal tax and meet the state and federal standards, and therefore, the ACA is certified as the qualified health benefits plan. Within the Affordable Health Care Act, the exchanges have been empowered for selecting qualified health planning, providing information, along with enrolment assistance, coordinating the enrolment (Chu et al., 2020). In addition, the Medicaid program of state, calculating the eligibility of the subsidiary, overseeing the plans, and providing the information of eligibility and plan performance to the federal governments.
Improvement of the accountability, Efficiency, and Quality of Health Care
Besides the insurance, ACA has aligned the health care system based on the long-term changes of the quality of the health care, the designing of the health care practices, and transparency of health information. The Act introduces the considerable changes in Medicaid and Medicare, which empowers both the state Medicaid programs and the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for testing new payment modes and service delivery like medical homes (Pacheco et al., 2020). The ACA act as the representation of reframing the financial relationship between the healthcare system and the Americans (Courtemanche et al., 2020). Therefore, the ACA act is the reinvention of Americans’ relationship to health insurance, which lies in the main focus of the battle of legality over the law’s constitutionality.
Reason Behind the Success of the ACA Act
The changes of the Act intended to allow the public payers to forcefully nudge the health care system to behave the way the health workers work in an integrated fashion in the clinics. The Affordable Health Care Act also measures the quality of care and reports the performance (Ramalingam et al., 2021). The Act, alongside targets for improving the quality of severe and chronic health conditions, has resulted in frequent admission and readmission in the hospital (Chu et al., 2020). ACA has also been successfully invested in developing the multiplayer National Quality Strategies. These strategies aim to generate multiplayer efficiency and quality measures for promoting value purchasing and more excellent safety and increased health information for private and public users.
The Affordable Health Care Act has also successfully provided accessibility of primary health care to medically underserved American populations. This has been estimated that about 60 million have been considered undeserved from medical care and are staying at high health risk (Chu et al., 2020). In addition, the ACA has also improved the public’s health and provided training to health professionals.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that the Affordable Health Care Act has provided numerous protection and rights for making health coverage easier and fairer to understand and subsidiaries. The Act has also successfully provided accessibility of primary health care to medically underserved American populations. Other than the insurance, ACA has begun realignment of the health care system based on the changes of the quality of the health care and the designing of the health care practices and transparency. The Affordable Health Care Act has also improved the public’s health and provided training to health professionals.
References
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