The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in March 23, 2010 signed in by former president Barrack Obama. The Affordable Care Act was put into place to make sure that all people that were uninsured got insurance. There were key points that the ACA required one of them was that patients who had pre-existing conditions that were denied health insurance could not be denied anymore. Other key requirements for the ACA in 2011 were patient protection for all new plans, extensions of dependent coverage for young adults, first-dollar prevention benefits, no lifetime limits on coverage, prohibits rescission, and an appeals process. (eHealth Writer, 2016) Federal subsidies for health insurance coverage was also a big part of the ACA, this meant that people would get help paying for their monthly insurance premiums. The last thing to not was that this law made it mandatory for people to purchase health insurance either through the marketplace or through an employer or else there would be penalty. The ACA has its pros and cons, among the many pros some that stand out are that people who couldn’t afford health insurance before can now afford it, people who had pre-existing conditions and were denied health insurance will now be able to get insurance, and lastly it changed how healthcare is delivered. (Amadeo, 2017) The cons of the ACA are as followed many people will have to pay higher premiums, there will be a fine for not having insurance, taxes are going up as a result of the ACA, enrolling can be complex, and businesses are cutting employee hours to avoid covering employees. (Steven Kim, 2015) My opinion on the Affordable Care Act is that it is a good thing. There is no problem to be addressed here besides pointing out the flaws and advantages to the ACA.
I personally believe that the ACA is a good law that was passed but there are some negatives that have come from it and should not be ignored. First and foremost is that insurance premiums are higher for many people. Speaking personally my family’s insurance premium has doubled over the past year and continues to go up forcing us to change insurance companies. One of the major pitches for the ACA was that it would make it easier for people to afford health insurance but if the premiums keep rising then we will right back to where we started. The next disadvantage is that if you do not have health insurance you will be fined. The fine started at ninety-five dollars in 2014 and continues to go up wither 2.5% of a person’s annual income or six hundred and ninety-five dollars, whichever is the largest. This has caused a lot of controversy among people because they do not want to pay the fine and the health insurance plan may not be as affordable as they once thought. Another major reason that the insurance premiums are going up is because of the recent executive order that was signed by the president Donald Trump which allows small businesses to offer healthcare plans as well as enrollment into short-term health insurance plans. (Mangan, 2017) By signing this executive order, it introduces competition that may offer lower premiums but to only those that are healthy and do not have a pre-existing condition taking away a big part of the original ACA law. The third negative about the ACA is that it has caused taxes to go up. There were several new taxes created to help pay for the ACA, which included taxes on pharmaceutical sales and medical devices. There were also taxes created for high income people. (eHealth Writer, 2016) In a way, the people that are well off or wealthy are helping to subsidize the insurance for the poor. According to some economists if these taxes continue long-term then eventually there will be e positive impact on the budget. (eHealth Writer, 2016) The next problem with the ACA is that enrolling into a healthcare plan can be complicated. Speaking from personal experience when the marketplace first opened in 2014 my family and I spent several days trying to maneuver the healthcare.gov website without success and eventually had to call in and spend approximately 3 hours on the phone to get insurance. The marketplace website was not properly built and did not have the capacity to house the millions of people that fled to the website causing it to crash. The website was so bad that there were programs and agents setup to guide people in the process of enrollment since everything was being delayed. For my parents, not being technical at all it was very hard to get them to sign up and if I were not there to help them they would not have signed up at all. The last negative that was brought up by the ACA is that businesses are cutting employee hours to avoid covering employees. There are reports of business cutting hours from employee’s schedules so they would not have to pay for the health insurance. This was bad for the employees because they were getting 10 hours cut from there weekly salary which can be significant. Another big concern in the healthcare community with ACA was that doctors were not getting reimbursed as much money as they had gotten in the past causing them to have to shut down their practices and going to a local hospital for work. These are the major cons of the ACA that have been highlighted throughout the years of the implementation of the ACA.
There are benefits that have come from the ACA being passed and they are as followed more Americans have health insurance, health insurance is more affordable to many more people than before, people with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied of coverage, no time limits on care, more screenings are covered, lower prescription drug cots and how healthcare is delivered in general. More than 16 million Americans have gotten health insurance coverage within the first five years of the ACA which includes many young adults like myself. My family could not afford health insurance before the ACA and that does make be biased when it comes to my opinion on the ACA. Before the ACA my parents didn’t go to the hospital or doctor no matter what because they couldn’t afford it and the kids got Medicaid until they were 19. My dad is a diabetic and my mom has high blood pressure so it wasn’t good for them at all. As soon as the ACA was put into effect my parents and I could afford health insurance. My dad finally got cataract surgery and was put on a diabetic treatment plan and my mother got help with her high blood pressure and got her hernia surgery which was prolonged for ten years due to financial issues. My mom also had kidney cancer and if it wasn’t for her doctor noticing it early on she would have had to get her kidney removed or worse. So, the ACA for me personally was one of the best things that could have happened because I can say that it really did save my parents lives. This brings me into the next pro which is that health insurance is more affordable for people due to the ACA. Insurance companies are supposed to spend 80 percent of their insurance premiums on improvements and medical care. With the help of subsidizes which help pay a portion of the premium healthcare is more affordable. (eHealth Writer, 2016) Next major positive to come out of the ACA is that it allows people with pre-existing conditions to get healthcare. Pre-existing conditions such as cancer made it difficult for people to get health insurance but with the ACA in place the insurance companies could not deny someone with a pre-existing health condition. Next pro is that there are no time limits on care. This means that people have chronic health problems do not have a cap on how much their insurance company would pay for. Before the ACA insurance companies put a maximum dollar amount on patients which chronic health problems like cancer which require long-term care. Screenings are covered and have a low deductible because they want to encourage people to continually get screened so they can prevent diseases or handle them before they get out of hand. Examples of screenings are diabetes screenings which can help in early treatment. Another thing that the ACA did was that it lowered the prescription drug costs. Before the ACA medicine was not affordable for many people including my dad, who has diabetes and requires insulin. Now that the ACA helped lower the cost my dad can comfortably afford the insulin and other drugs that he needs. The last pro for the ACA is that it changed how healthcare was delivered. The ACA Medicare has changed the way it pays the hospitals and doctors. Before the ACA Medicare was payed for every procedure and test that you get. Now the transition will be to a new system that bases payments on how well a person gets. This would make hospitals and doctors to work together to come up with a comprehensive plan of care. (Amadeo, 2017)
Overall my opinion of the ACA is that it is great and has benefited my family in the past. With everything there are cons like the ones I have highlighted like higher premiums, fines, tax spikes, complex enrollment, and businesses cutting hours to avoid having to provide health insurance to employees. To me the pros like more Americans have health insurance, affordable healthcare insurance, people with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied of coverage, no time limits on care, more screenings are covered, lower prescription drug costs and how healthcare is delivered in general outweigh the cons. The ACA has impacted my life and many millions of people in a positive way and I can say that it has saved my parents life’s in one way or another. Overall the ACA is very complicated and will continue to evolve through the years and my hope is that it will continue to be more beneficial than harmful for everyone.