Affordable Care Act and Health Care

Respond to at least two of your peers by extending, refuting/correcting, or adding additional nuance to their posts.
All replies must be constructive and use literature where possible.
CASE STUDY 1 ( C.P)

                   Affordable Care Act and Health Care Outcomes

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a comprehensive health reform law that was enacted in March of 2010. It has three primary goals, make affordable health insurance available to more people, expand the Medicaid program, and support innovative medical care delivery methods designed to lower the costs of health care generally (“Affordable Care Act [ACA]”, n.d.). The ACA has allowed children to stay on the parent’s insurance until they are 26, the insurance companies could not raise premiums for infants or children because of pre-existing conditions or disability, and adults who could previously not get coverage because of a pre-existing condition would now get insurance. It also helps small businesses get health insurance coverage for their employees.
Since the ACA has gone into effect there have been tremendous increases in the amount of people who now have health insurance. In the years following the ACA, there continues to be gains in health insurance coverage and access to care from the policy. There also is improvement in the probability of reporting excellent health (Courtemanche et al., 2018). Since children are allowed to stay on their parent’s health insurance for a longer amount of time, it can increase health outcomes for those children. This benefits between 2 and 3 million young people (McIntyre & Song, 2019). It gives college students a chance to stay on the insurance and not have to worry about finding insurance, or not having any at all. It is also important to note that when a child does turn 26, they can sign up for a new plan without having to wait for open enrollment at the end of the year. This also improves chances of those children having continuation of health insurance, instead of waiting for open enrollment. The ACA also provided low-income individuals and households with subsides to help them purchase insurance. Since the law has been implemented, “the number of people in the country has fallen by about 20 million” (McIntyre & Song, 2019). This has an undeniable impact on health outcomes in the United States.
Another aspect of the ACA that has improved health outcomes would be small businesses being able to afford health insurance for employees. New tax credits made it more affordable for small businesses to buy health insurance for workers. The employers would benefit from tax credit if they, “provide health care for their employees, have no more than 25 full-time workers, and pay an average yearly salary of less than $50,000” (Galan, 2018). Before the ACA small businesses had a hard time affording insurance for employees, often times not being able to provide health insurance at all. This allows for even more people to have access to health insurance, and gives these small businesses incentive to provide it for employees.
The ACA was enacted 9 years ago and is still at the front of public policy debate. It is a historic achievement for the United States and healthcare reform. It has left an undeniable mark on the healthcare system through its expansion of insurance coverage and efforts to improve the healthcare delivery system.

CASE STUDY 2 (P.L)

ACA and Health-Care Outcomes & Costs

      “The U.S. health care system presents three challenges: lowering cost, improving access, and improving quality.” (page160) Mason, Leavitt& Chaffee (2012). Economist believes that the U.S. has not been able to enact a major health care reform plan because of a combination of interests and power (Feldstein,2005) (page 160) Mason, Leavitt & Chaffee (2012). Many studies have examined how access to care at the population level and has improved since the Affordable Care Act ( ACA ) implementation. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) generally referred to as Obamacare it is the landmark health reform legislation that was passed by the 11th Congress and signed into law by President Barak Obama. The provision began taking effect in 2010 and has extended health insurance coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. The effects of the Medicaid expansion and marketplace establishment on coverage have been studied, but the effects of coverage and access to health care remain unclear. The first open enrollment period from October 2013-March, 2014. 
      The initial rollout varied across states and how well websites and enrollment process operated in 2014. It has found that through the expansion in 2014, gaining insurance decreased the probability of not receiving medical care by 20.9 and 25 percent. Acquiring insurance coverage increases the likelihood of having a usual place of care by 47.1 percent and 86.5 percent. These findings suggest that the ACA decreased the number of uninsured Americans and improved access to care for those who gained coverage. Another is that the ACA also expanded Medicaid coverage in participating states to nonelderly adults and incomes that were under 133 percent of the federal poverty level. For an individual about 16,000 and about 35,000 for a family of four. Before the ACA, most states did not provide coverage to adults without children, even if they were of low income. Some states only covered parents if they were of low income. A critical requirement of this plan is that it encompasses preventive care, for example, cancer screenings, vaccines, birth control, Blood pressure at no additional cost.
      Moreover, millions have coverage for mental health and substance abuse disorder services. This form of coverage is available to individuals, families, and small business. The ACA implemented that small employers and individuals treat mental health disorder equal to general medical care.

In conclusion, the repeal of the ACA will threaten access to preventive care to 138 million Americans, including 29 million children and 55 million senior citizens on Medicare. Another is that 16.5 million consumers who become newly insured in the ACA-regulated individual market will have to spend more overall on health care because they will pay premiums for the first time. However, they will experience a reduced risk of spending more than 10 or 20 percent of annual income on medical costs.