The United States of America's reform agenda on healthcare aims at expanding and improving access to quality healthcare at affordable rates . The Affordable Care Act commonly known as Obama care focuses on ensuring universal health cover at reasonable prices health and regulating the health insurance industry (Boucher, 2010). Even though the Obama care invention has significant benefits, it has some letdowns, which needs consideration for effective implementation.
One of the failures is its impact on business. Obama care's legislative and compliance bodies proposed substantial costs for small businesses. On the contrary, small businesses should be allowed to purchase the complex employer mandate package where the 30-hour per workweek is considered full time (Boucher, 2010). The huge remittance for insurance expands business costs, and it is forcing small businesses to cut hours, wages and jobs. Obama care exerted new struggle for small enterprises with the high insurance cost . Therefore, small business lacked new choices and buying coverage, as such, administering health insurance became a burden . To cut the cost of the employer mandate, the employer should provide insurance coverage to all employees or pay the health coverage by adding the cost of the additional hours worked by the employee. The federal government should count the money that bosses spend on health insurance for their employees. This tax exclusion increases the costs by encouraging employer-purchased insurance . Many people have no idea of how much is spent on the insurance simply because the people using the guarantees are not those who buy them. Due to this reason, there is a non-clear link between the cost and value.
According to Gibson (2011), there is no secure insurance coverage for many Americans, and thus, they are insured with the pre-existing and expensive insurances. The workers over rely on the employer-sponsored insurances and therefore; they lose their workforce when they move from one job to another since these benefits are not transferable . Besides, some people want to move from the job-based insurance to individual coverage systems. For the medical reform to be effective, the employers are supposed break away from the unlimited tax break and provide a particular tax credit to their employees . If workers require the expensive insurance plans, then they should be allowed to meet the cost, especially, those who prefer the small premiums due to affordability . The states should regulate the individual cost incurred when employees move from job insurances to personal insurance plans. An employee is supposed to remain under their employer's insurance plans after they lose their job provided they make subsequent premium payments .
About Medicare and Medicaid, the management should provide static premium sustenance. The premium support provides coverage to beneficiaries though it fails let them make choices among competing options (Boucher, 2010). A possible approach is covering those Americans who leave their jobs when they are very sick need to be implemented. This cover should only apply to the insured individuals . Medicaid has been funding low-income women and their children under the federal-state programs. The program has been discouraging its beneficiaries from securing better jobs to retain their Medicaid insurance . For practical implementation of the Obama-care, the government should work towards moving the low-income people from this bracket. This enlightenment will enable them to purchase coverage from other providers, be able to access doctors, and value for money . Furthermore, the services provided through the Medicaid can be malformed into a pool of funding and allocated to Americans in the form of a federal health care support . The state government can then provide their support on top of this aid. The cost that Obama care will impose on Medicaid expansions is high though savings gotten from other components of the reforms would curtail this cost. The Medicaid changes will also ensure that the future federal costs grow at higher rate .
The cost of health insurance, in particular, Obama care rates have hiked in the last two years, and more rises are expected in 2017 when some laws set by insurance companies expire. Comparing the rates between 2013 and 2014, there has been an increase of 49%. To ensure that the health care insurance is successfully implemented, refundable tax credits should be offered to low-income families and individuals to make sure that they can purchase the health insurance (Boucher, 2010). The rise in medical cost has left many people unable to pay for their insurance. This rise also affects the government budget because government expenditure on health care has surged resulting in mounting debts. Allowing the sale of health insurance across the states will cause competition between the states and reduce the insurance premiums. In order, to cut cost on health insurance, health-driven plans should be considered . The reduction of these costs requires an inclusive, bipartisan and collaborative approach. Health plans are very crucial in lowering the medical expenses. Health providers should collaborate with healthcare providers to come up with innovative, high-value payment systems to reward value and high quality of services..
The government is very responsible for the high rising costs of health care. The Medicare design is seriously flattered since they pay workers by the volume done not by the service provided (Boucher, 2010). This mode of payment results in inefficiency and overuse distorting the economics of the entire sector.
REFERENCES
Atlas, S. W. (2010). Reforming America's health care system: the flawed vision of Obamacare. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.
Boucher, B. (2010). Representative American speeches 2009-2010. New York: H.W. Wilson Co.
Gibson, R. (2011). The battle over health care: what Obama's reform means for America's future. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Haugen, D. M. (2008). Health care. Detroit: Greenhaven Press.
Starr, P. (2011). Remedy and reaction: the peculiar American struggle over health care reform. New Haven: Yale University Press.
