Description
Healthcare in the United States is very costly for Americans. It becomes an issue for Americans when they have to choose between their health and their daily responsibilities. According to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (2020) the U.S. health care spending grew 4.6 percent in 2019, reaching $3.8 trillion or $11,582 per person. With the healthcare costs to Americans being such a task it has become one of the most talked about aspect of political gain.
The Affordable care act was enacted under president Obama in 2010 where his efforts were to make affordable health insurance available to more people at lower costs, expand the Medicaid program to cover all adults with income below 138% of the poverty level and overall lower the health care costs through supporting innovative medical care delivery methods (Healthcare, n.d). To make these objectives a reality, new healthcare marketplaces were created by legislation to offer people a place to purchase these healthcare plans if they were not covered by employment insurance or Medicaid. Since this act has been in place it has managed to transform the health care system by making it attainable to over 20 million Americans and has saved thousands of lives.
With all the advances made with the ACA there is still political debate on the repeal or replacement of the ACA by both political parties but the call for change has mostly been seen by the Republican party due mainly to the implementation of essential health benefits. Their proposed changes would provide less restrictive coverage requirements would allow insurers freedom to tailor plan offerings with cheaper, less comprehensive benefit packages (Willison and Singer, 2017). It has been shown that insurance is costly to those who have preexisting conditions so as a nurse in public health I feel that all people deserve to have access to health services regardless of health condition. Through experience when patients do not have insurance they have more visits to the emergency room that not only lead to bills to the patient but causes a burden on the healthcare budget.
Politicians know that election time is the best time to make these types of proposals for the election/reelection vote. To date the repeal is unlikely to be supported due to the cost-benefit analysis. As discussed by Milstead and Short (2019) for a program to be economical, the benefits must be high compared to the amount incurred from the implementation of the program. If there is to be a change there is a chance that those who have access to the insurance coverage would lose the coverage leaving many uninsured leaving these people unable to access r afford any type of insurance. The politicians are only likely to support the change if it is beneficial to them but this cannot be seen as the case with the latest proposals.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (2020). National Health Expenditure Data. https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NationalHealthAccountsHistorical#:~:text=U.S.%20health%20care%20spending%20grew,spending%20accounted%20for%2017.7%20percent
Healthcare. (n.d). Affordable Care Act (ACA). https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/affordable-care-act/
Milstead, J. A., & Short, N. M. (2019). Health policy and politics: A nurses guide (6th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Willison, C., & Singer, P. (2017). Repealing the Affordable Care Act Essential Health Benefits: Threats and Obstacles. American journal of public health, 107(8), 12251226. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2017.303888
