Health Insurance Marketplace: A Case Study

Conclusion: The Obamacare has its very good points it does benefit the economy in ways that are meant to take the economy out of debt. But they do cause side effects that may not have been thought of.

Issue: 4.6 million Texans are currently uninsured without access to affordable healthcare due to the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid or provide additional public health coverage options. Section 1115 of the Social Security Act gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to approve states’ experimental, pilot, or demonstration projects that promote the objectives of the Medicaid and CHIP programs.

The Obamacare development of the number of insurance coverage will dramatically augment the figure of people by 25 million. A small number over the partly of the recently insured will have indemnity from Medicare (13 million), while on the other hand the additional will expand coverage through confidential insurance purchased on state or federally run wellbeing insurance connections.

The Affordable Care Act, which expanded access to affordable healthcare across the country, has excluding coverage to the almost twelve million undocumented immigrants living in the United States (Nevarez, 2014). Excluding these members of the country has left it nearly impossible to obtain healthcare needs for these individuals. State laws suggest, undocumented immigrants are not allowed any assistance including federal subsidies in order to purchase medical coverage. Undocumented immigrants are also restricted against personally purchasing healthcare coverage through an insurance company, which leaves few options to obtain proper medical care (Nevarez, 2014). Statistics have found that over half of the undocumented population residing in

I am a big proponent of the health care department and the services that it provides especially when I couldn't afford health insurance. I feel that we really need to re-think how we are handling our substance abuse and mental health facilities.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) caused some of the issues central to the expansion of Medicaid. Some of the major challenges in Affordable Care Act (ACA) the improved access to more individuals. According to Levitt, Claxton, and Damico (2013), the Affordable Care Act expansion increase limitation to families under 65 whose income is at or below 133% of federal poverty guidelines. This leads into significant growth in eligibility of newly coverage populations. Medicaid provide an opportunity to identify successful enrollment and renewal practices, strategies to ensure access to care, effective models of person-centered and coordinated care, and payment systems that align financial incentives with goals for quality and cost. (Paradise, 2015). Especially

Millions of Americans use the services of health care officials on a daily basis. To aid in the increasingly high financial costs of these services, many people rely on the government, insurance companies, and other parties through managed care organizations (MCOs) (Potter & Perry, 2017, p. 15). A MCO “provides comprehensive preventive and treatment services to a specific group of voluntarily enrolled people” (Potter & Perry, 2017, p. 16). With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the government faces ongoing struggles to use valuable resources within the health care system to continually maintain problematic MCOs. Therefore, the administration of health care services has been greatly impacted by the ACA, bringing about

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law March 23, 2010, and aims to increase the quality and affordability of health insurance, lower the uninsured rate by expanding public and private insurance, and contain the rising costs of health care for individuals and the government( APTA ,2013).

Should one be forced to have health insurance, or should it be an option? Healthcare is a topic that Texas has often debated. The Affordable Care Act, signed into law on March 23, 2010 was immediately a largely debated subject. The new health care act could be beneficial for those on Medicaid, yet Texas did not expand Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Employer-based health care coverage has been in place for many decades. Employers began offering health care coverage for two main reasons. Providing health care coverage was a way for organizations to gain a competitive advantage. Also, it was a way to add value to an employee’s compensation package without increasing their actual wage amount. Over time, the cost of health care has reached tremendous heights, leading to the government establishing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). GMFC is now concerned about the increased costs associated with providing necessary PPACA regulations.

In the United States, smoking cigarettes is the number one preventable cause of morbidity and death (Bergen, 1999), and accounts for $300 Billion in health care costs and economic productivity loss (Jamal, 2015). While the national smoking rate is 16.8% (CDC, 2016), specific demographics are more susceptible to developing smoking habits: people who live below the poverty line (10.9% higher), disabled or with a limitation (6.2% higher), and males (4.7% higher) (Agaku, 2014).

Tobacco use; despite efforts to curb it, have remained unsatisfactory high. The ACA aims to improve this by making smoking cessation programs affordable or free in health care policies; by funding local communities sponsoring outreach programs aimed at at-risk populations, and media campaigns graphically illustrating the dangers tobacco use [3].

"Smokers have more diseases than nonsmokers”, in other words, “nonsmokers are healthier than smokers” (Leu & Schaub, 1983). If the population of people smoking decreases, there will be a large amount of savings in healthcare costs, however, only for a short duration of time. Within 15 years of the process (of smoking population decreasing), health care prices will increase dramatically to 7% higher for men and 4% higher for women (Barendregt, Bonneux & Van Der Maas). In the meantime, the article further explained the economic consequences and showed 2 points of view regarding the idea of having cheaper health care costs for smokers.

People may argue that because every pack of cigarettes contains a high tax, then it is benefiting the economy by giving the government more money. Although this may be true, our economy is also struggling because of smokers. Furthermore, medical bills have to be paid when a smoker gets lung cancer and has to get treatment. While smokers may be giving the government a larger amount of tax money every year, they also increase the medical bills and cause their job companies to lose money. According to an anti-smoking campaign, studies show that medical costs decreased in a six month period. In this article, “Anti-smoking Drive To Cut Health Costs”, Darren Gray mentions that in 1997 the estimated health-care savings were more than $24 million. He later analyzes that “The savings were attributed to a reduction in the incidence of lung cancer, heart disease and strokes - but could be even greater because the analysis did not include the effects of passive smoking”. This just proves that even though buying cigarettes gives the government more tax money, it also decreases the government’s money for people who have health insurance and need that money to pay for lung cancer treatments. If cigarettes were to become illegal, not as many people would continue to buy them, because they do not want to commit crimes; therefore, leading to less medical issues related to tobacco smoke.

Since the establishment of the linkage between smoking and numerous serious side effects, including lung cancer, lung disease, and tooth decay, in the mid-1900s, public health officials and lawmakers have attempted to decrease the prevalence of smoking in the general public through a myriad of methods. One such method would be the “Tobacco Tax” otherwise known as price increases on cigarettes and other tobacco products. Ideally, such tobacco taxes would act as disincentives on smoking, causing adults to quit smoking or at least to decrease their consumption of cigarettes. Overall, this is a highly debated topic in the fields of both public policy and economics.