The Affordable Care Act completely changed the patient landscape of health care safety nets with its implementation in 2010. In particular, its expansion of Medicaid significantly shifted uninsured patient healthcare provider utilization, from emergency departments and free clinics, towards community health centers and federally qualified health centers. Yet major gaps in healthcare coverage persist due to states choosing not to expand Medicaid, exclusion of undocumented immigrants, and misunderstandings of the ACA. Health care safety net providers must understand their changing demographics and the needs of vulnerable uninsured patient populations. In doing so, healthcare safety net providers will be better informed in regards to necessary changes needed to thrive in the post-ACA era. The enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has significantly reduced the rate of the uninsured, yet those who do not fit within the parameters of the ACA still face many obstacles in obtaining necessary healthcare. Those without insurance must rely on “locally organized [systems] of health care delivery intended to fill gaps in access to health care services for uninsured… and other vulnerable populations in medically underserved communities” (Liebert and Ameringer 2013)—understood as health care safety nets. Healthcare providers within these systems include emergency rooms, community health centers (CHC), federally qualified health centers (FQHC), and free clinics. (Liebert and Ameringer
Financial barriers to access health care are common in a low-income family when they are uninsured or underinsured. Many uninsured and undocumented immigrant received federal and state health care coverage. Latinos and African American are the ethnicities that are disproportionally get affected. Limited access to a doctor when they are sick, taking non-prescribed medication and holding off recommended treatment is only some of the problems they encountered (Carrillo et al., 2011).
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:
The Affordable Healthcare Act is expected to increase medical coverage to include an additional 30 million people. What has become clearer is that just because coverage was expanded does not mean an expansion of actual care. “When Congress enacted the national health law, it unleashed a potential tsunami of newly insured patients, flooding a delivery system that was already strained and fragile. The American health care infrastructure has had workforce shortages for decades and is not prepared to meet such a vast influx of patients effectively or
After the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted in 2010, much of the uninsured population in the United States were finally given the access to health insurance (Shi & Singh, 2015). Prior to the passing of the Act, those who did not have insurance still managed to seek medical attention, whether paying for medical care out of their own pockets or seeking the assistance of government programs. As reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2013, 13.4% of the population in the U.S. were uninsured during the entire year (Smith & Medalia, 2014). Still, a great number of uninsured who sought medical care were unable to pay for those services, this is referred as uncompensated care. In 2013 the cost incurred from
As previously illustrated, there are both advantages and disadvantages of Medicaid. However, being a beneficiary of Medicaid increases access to health care. As a result of the program, adults were 70% more likely to have a regular place of care, “55% more likely to have a regular doctor than the adults who did not gain coverage;” and the utilization of preventative services have increased (Garfield & Paradise, 2013). Furthermore, access to speciality care such as physical therapy; podiatry and hospice remain unattainable. In a multiple city audit, researchers found that only 34% of Medicaid beneficiaries were able to “secure an appointment for urgent” specialist care, compared to 64% of those privately
The Affordable Care Act, also called Healthcare Reform, or Obamacare, is a decision that Obama administration was planning for long time to fix some problems. Many people live in this country without health insurance, and they can’t go to hospital when they become sick. Book (n page) wrote that 40 million of Americans were either permanently or occasionally without health insurance. The ACA was signed by President Obama on March 23, 2010 and became law. The idea of the President Obama is to make more people have insurance, control healthcare costs, and to make the healthcare delivery system better. Six years after Americans start ACA, many people like it, and some people don’t like it. However, the effects of this reform on the healthcare workforce are not always positive, because people who work in the medical field will now have more people to take care of. People say for long time ago that they need more staff in the hospital. Now, it is more because more people who don’t have insurance before, have it now and they go to the clinics or hospitals. The shortage of healthcare professionals, their maldistribution in the country, stress from the more new patient, the more paperwork, the penalty to reduce reimbursement, a change of reward, and the staff anger, are some problems created by the ACA on healthcare workers.
The goal of this policy brief is to support Alabama’s current decision to continue Medicaid Primary Care Parity, as first enacted by congress in 2010 to all states under section 1202 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, as Alabama is facing budget cuts to its Medicaid services, supporting the “Ensuring Access to Primary Care for Women and Children Act” will extend federally funded Medicaid primary care parity without harming the state budget and negate the consequences of limiting Medicaid enrollee access and benefits. The federal government proposed to pay 100% of Medicaid services mandated under section 1202, from 2013 to 2014, which has since expired in December 2014. This program requires certain primary care services to be reimbursed at higher rates equivalent to those rates paid by Medicare for equivalent primary care services. Limited provider participation, limited Medicaid beneficiary access & decreased enrollment of physicians, physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) into primary care can be improved through this monetary incentive.
During the botched 2010 roll out of the affordable care act, multiple veteran’s agencies marched on Washington with fears of how the Tax/Mandate would affect indigent veterans who could not afford the penalty and could not afford secondary insurance. In their hubris, these agents pushed an agenda that has greatly hurt the veteran population.
The Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, just over five years ago. Since then the healthcare industry, and even organizations outside the industry, have been affected in many ways; from new reimbursement models, opening healthcare exchanges, millions of individuals gaining insurance that they previously did not have, and a plethora of new regulations just to name a few. Although the law was passed in 2010, it wasn’t until 2014 that millions of newly insured participants entered into the system when much of the affects were initially recognized. However, even with two enrollment periods under our belt, a new enrollment period set to begin in a month, along with additional regulations still to be fully recognized, how the
The Affordable Care Act was signed into law early spring of 2010. It’s probably the most comprehensive reform we’ve seen in the United States healthcare system within the last forty four years. Although the law was put into effect, the features of the new law took effect in 2014. The Affordable Care Act changed the non insurance group market in the United States, mandates most residents to have health insurance, considerably expand public insurance and subsidize private insurance, while raising revenue from a variety of new taxes. Projecting the impacts of the health care system will be challenging, but related estimates were required for the legislative process, and conducted by the Congressional Budget Office.
Hispanics are one of the largest groups in the United States that are uninsured. Additionally, the Hispanic population is one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S. The Hispanic population is estimated to increase over the next 25 years to 32 million out of a total of 72 million of the US population (Brice, 2000). The U.S. health care system is facing one of its most notable societal issues in years in reference to its ability to provide access to medical care for the millions of Americans who do not have health care, for whatever cause. The Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010, for the purpose of reducing inequalities in insurance coverage and to provide access to health care for all. A vital goal of the
The Affordable Care Act is considered one of the most important legislations related to health care reform to ever been enacted in the history of the United States (Cannan, 2013). The ACA was developed in order to give consumers control of their health care and to provide them with a means of power. The intention was for Americans to have stability and flexibility when it came to making personal healthcare decisions. Many citizens have been able to opportunity obtain affordable healthcare coverage with this reform that they did not have before. Programs have been developed to assist those with pre-existing conditions that may have previously been unable to obtain coverage. Options for young adults under the age of 30 who may not have had coverage have been developed under other health coverage program enacted. The Affordable Care Act has also offered protection for those that received arbitrary withdrawals of insurance coverage. Many Americans have chosen to opt out of healthcare coverage altogether in the past, but this is no longer an option without a penalty. There is a fine that is required to be paid when filing annual income taxes. Unfortunately, some Americans are uninsured and do not have the means to pay for health insurance, and are forced to pay the fine. This has been a growing issue in America as many families cannot afford much more beyond the daily necessities. Therefore, any serious injury or illness can quickly diminish any savings or cause debt to those
Health care in the United States is driven by a patchwork of services and financing. Americans access health care services in a variety of ways — from private physicians’ offices, to public hospitals, to safety-net providers. This diverse network of health care providers is supported by an equally diverse set of funding streams. The United States spends almost twice as much on health care as any other country, topping $2 trillion each year. (WHO.INT 2000) However, even with overall spending amounting to more than $7,400 per person, millions of individuals cannot access the health care services they need.(Foundation 2009) So when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a the Affordable Care Act or ACA) was passed in the summer
The United States health care public safety net system largely provides healthcare services to the uninsured and the under insured. However, this vulnerable population still cannot access adequate care and compared to the privately insured population, the uninsured receive less preventative and specialty health care services. The need for safety net providers to improve the delivery and access to care has led to increased funding through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) as well the expanded community health centers (CHCs) (HealthCare.gov, 2010). Following the passage of the PPACA and increased federal support for the CHCs, the American public health care system witnessed significant changes. Some of these changes include increased access to healthcare, restructurings of private health coverages and containing Medicaid and Medicaid ().
Priority #1: Gap in access to health care, especially to the uninsured, underserved, and minority populations. This includes children and seniors as well. Although the Affordable Care Act has decreased the number of uninsured people since its implementation, there are still many residents who can’t afford the high deductibles and premiums (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016). Furthermore, those with no insurance commonly face the challenge of not receiving preventative care. Due to the remoteness of the area, there are many additional unique challenges with regards to access to health insurance. One example is that many employee-based coverages do not cover local providers and do not