Major Impacts on the Health System

Posted: August 27th, 2021

Major Impacts on the Health System

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Major Impacts on the Health System

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 is an essential health care policy enacted in the U.S. since the introduction of Medicaid and Medicare in the first half of 1960. The legislation introduced significant transformations designed to enhance health care quality, affordability, and reachability of health care services (Obama, 2016). Obama (2016) examines publicly available information, data acquired from state entities, and published research results from 1963 to 2016 and finds that no health legislation has had substantial effects in resolving long-standing intricacies facing the United States health care system. Since the bill became law, the number of uninsured individuals has dropped significantly from 43.1% to 16.2% in 2010 to 9.0% in 2016, chiefly because of the legislation’s reforms (Obama, 2016). The ACA continues to affect the health sector in many aspects.

The ACA has both positive and negative implications. One of the benefits of the ACA is that more Americans, regardless of their background and status, now have health cover. The increased coverage could be attributed to the fact that health insurance became affordable following the enactment of the law (Obama, 2016). Besides, more people now have coverage because people with preexisting conditions now have an unrestricted chance to get coverage. Other benefits of the ACA have increased coverage for screening services and decreased the price of prescription drugs (Obama, 2016). Nevertheless, the ACA is disadvantageous because more individuals have to remit higher premiums, and taxes have escalated following the enactment of the law (Obama, 2016). Despite the limitations, the ACA has had a tremendous impact on health provision and access.

Overall, I feel that the impact of the ACA is positive because costly health operations have always denied many Americans vital services. Amin, Claxton, Ramirez, and Cox (2021) inform that adults suffering from severe health conditions are more likely to receive no or inadequate health care or delay the services due to high cost. Approximately 21% of adults in critical condition postponed or did not get medical attention because of cost hurdles (Amin et al., 2021). Thus, embracing the policy and continuously reviewing it presents a better chance to offer affordable care to more people.

References

Amin, K., Claxton, G., Ramirez, G., & Cox, C. (2021). How does cost affect access to care? Retrieved from https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/cost-affect-access-care/#item-start

Obama, B. (2016). United States health care reform progress to date and next steps. JAMA, 316(5), 525-532. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2016.9797