The 2010 Affordable Care Act

Primary care in the United States has been in a state of neglect or of being underfunded for a long time. This dysfunctional state has been allowed to occur despite evidence, which shows the importance of primary care in creating healthy outcomes and controlling costs. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) tries to address some of these issues by:

Implementation of the ACA would require an extensive expansion of the Medicaid program to low income adults in each state.³ The Congressional Budget Office projects that a previously 30 million uninsured Americans, approximately 92% of the legal, non-elderly population, will have coverage by 2022.³ The federal government will pay for 100% of the costs of expanding Medicaid programs until 2016, and then gradually fade their contribution to 90% by 2020.³ Currently, expansion of the Medicaid program is voluntary and several states have stated that they intend to turn down their share of the billions of dollars that has been made available to each state solely for the expansion of this program.³ States deciding to not expand their Medicaid program will not only exclude many poor, vulnerable families from access to an important health care program, but will also exclude themselves from an economic stimulus for their state and thereby decrease the strength of their health care delivery systems by not allowing them to be more financially stable for the long

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) which was passed by Congress was implemented to improve the quality of health care and reduce the cost of health insurance in the United State. America spends more on health care than any other industrialized nation in the world. In North Carolina, the governor signed a bill to block the state from extending the ACA which will allow Medicaid to cover group of individuals that are uninsured. North Carolina rank 33rd of the 50 states in population measures in 2012 and rank 38th in health outcome (Siberman, 2013). In 2010-2011 approximately 1.7 million people were uninsured and had barriers to access health care in North Carolina as

When it validated the constitutionality of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2012, the United States Supreme Court also ruled that states could decide for themselves whether or not to expand their Medicaid programs (Sonfield, 2012). Predictably, South Carolina said no. The Palmetto State’s decision not to expand Medicaid in concert with the Affordable Care Act was wrong, and it is time to correct that mistake.

The purpose of The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is to increase access and make it more affordable for all Americans. Unfortunately, the US health care delivery system lacks the ability to plan, direct, and coordinate from a central agency making it difficult for citizens to obtain health coverage. For that reason, The Affordable Care Act in 2010 became the most extensive health care reform in US history with its main objective to reduce the number of uninsured. The ACA permitted some standards in the health care delivery system to achieve universal coverage. Some examples were authorizing health insurances to start covering children and young adults below the age of 26 under their parents’ health insurance plans also allowing the law to lower

The enactment of the ACA in 2014 would make it possible for more working and nonworking parents to qualify for Medicaid. Based on the income levels, 51% of working and 37% of nonworking parents qualified for Medicaid prior to the ACA. Afterwards, the percentage increased to 138% for working and nonworking parents, and childless individuals. The projections showed a 38% increase in the number of children 6-18 eligible for Medicaid coverage and fewer on the North Carolina’s Health Choice insurance plan. This increase would have been huge based on the case study (Short, 2013). State officials chose not to go with the Medicaid expansion program, and instead offered marketplace exchanges. This could mean North Carolina would potentially have a large number of uninsured

Generally, healthcare policy is a term that defines the layout, procedures, plans or actions that are utilized to acquire health care goals in communities or societies. There are different forms of healthcare policies, such as H.R. 3962, the ACA (Affordable Care Act). The official name of this policy is ObamaCare and President Barack Obama signed the act into law in 2010. This policy came about back in 2009 when a pool of Democrats and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that they were going to reconstruct the health care system. Senator Ted Kennedy was a primary leader in health care reformation and he died in 2009.

OMarch 23, 2010 brought America's first universal health care coverage law, The Affordable Care Act (ACA) known as Obama Care (though it had nothing to do with the care of Obama). The ACA aimed to stop skyrocketing insurance plan rates, limiting coverage, capping usage, high deductibles, and denied coverage on preexisting conditions. It also addressed the issue of citizens who had only high deductible catastrophic health insurance plans, or not any health insurance at all. The ACA's objective to drive down medical costs mandated all citizens to have health care coverage. Part of the revenue was to come from health care payments made by those who hardly use medical services to provide funds to keep medical costs low for those who use medical

The ACA addresses eight themes: Access; cost control; quality improvement; prevention; workforce; revenue; administrative items; and the CLASS Act (which was eventually repealed) (Emanuel, 205). The “access” section primarily focuses on efforts to cover the 15 percent of uninsured Americans at the time of the ACA’s conception. Part of this included raising the age young adults could be covered by parents’ insurance until the age of 26, which affected three million young adults who otherwise would have been uninsured. The largest chunk of the section, though, was dedicated to transforming Medicaid and establishing web-based marketplaces that would allow people to buy health insurance with government subsidies. By 2014, the ACA established nationwide eligibility standards dictating that American adults under the age of 65 with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty level would qualify for Medicaid (Emanuel, 205). Prior to the decision, some states were only providing Medicaid to residents making as little as an abysmal 18 percent of the federal poverty level ($20,090 for a family of three) (Medicaid,

As discussed previously, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 passed by the legislature, drastically changed the entire healthcare economy. In fact, ever since the ACA was passed it was required by law for hospitals to increase the amount of attention given to the individuals of the community in order to meet their needs. Also, the ACA allowed close to 10 million individuals to have health insurance through Medicaid and private health insurances, which has a high impact on all the hospitals, such as Yale New Haven. For example, since millions of Americans can now afford health insurance, there is a large influx of patients who can go to hospitals and actually afford the overall cost. The non-profit hospital of Yale New Haven is benefiting in two ways. First, they are achieving their mission by caring for the individuals of their community who now have insurance and secondly, they are being compensated in terms of revenue to improve their organization in regards to hiring the greatest physicians and having the best technology and supplies to treat their large influx of patients (Cunningham, 2015). The rise in health insurances increases the total amount of money earned by that non-profit organization and the amount of patients receiving great quality of care.

Texas’s decision the not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act has took a toll on many Texans. Texas is one of many states yet to expand the Medicaid program. With the decision not to expand Medicaid, it have left many low-income families uninsured and without an option for affordable healthcare. Texas has the highest number of people uninsured in the Unites States of America. The change has now entered the third year and only 30 states have expanded the program. There is an ongoing outreach to get Texas state leaders to expand the coverage.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) highlighted the importance Medicaid played in insuring every American receive healthcare coverage. (42 U.S.C., 2010) Medicaid provides health benefits to over 71 million across the country. While involvement is optional, all 50 states participate in the program and requirements differ across the nation. The flexibility given to each state has allowed them to make their own decisions to work towards improvements that they believe would best benefit their region (Feldstein, 2015, p. 125-126).

According to Jayne O’Donnell, since January 2010, more than 40 rural community hospitals have closed their doors. In addition, O’Donnell points out that,

In 2009 there were 50.7 million people, 16.7% of the population, without health insurance. Americans all over the country are working and yet they still can’t afford to pay the high cost of health insurance for themselves and their families. Under the Affordable Care Act of 2010, which was signed by Obama on March 23, 2010, thirty two million Americans who were previously not eligible for Medicaid may now have the opportunity to be covered. If this act is passed in North Carolina then it will be expanded to cover nearly all of the 1.5 million North Carolinians who are without health insurance. If more Americans are covered under the Medicaid that they need then

States are being pressured to expand Medicaid to families earning up to $30,000 a year, just like the Affordable Care Act permits. While several respected governors have agreed to expand the program, many other governors and state legislators are cautious. These officials do not want to deny Americans their access to health care, however they do want to slow the expansion of a program that will provide them with limited access to quality care while destroying state budgets. One of the strongest arguments that can be made against the expansion of Medicaid is the fact that States simply can not afford it. The appeal to states to expand Medicaid is that the federal government will cover 100% of the cost through 2016 and eventually lowering to