Introduction
American healthcare sector has seen significant changes for past few decades. Psychological innovations brought modifications and improvements to American healthcare sector. Obama care is a dream project of US president Obama that was introduced on 23rd march 2010. Obama care is the popular name of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that was signed by the US president to provide high quality health services at an affordable cost to Americans. Obama Care got a mixed response from Americans across the United States of America. A large number of uninsured people welcomed Obama care, but the same was also criticized by a large number of Americans due to their vested interests.
History of American Health Care System
The healthcare system that Americans see today did not exist in the same manner as it exists today. American health care system was not much effective before 1900 when most of the Americans were uninsured and had no coverage for their health care. Doctors used to charge reasonably for their services as they also were not that knowledgeable to know about every illness and cure them. American people, on the other hand, used to pay for their health expenses from their own pockets and they were treated by their private doctors in homes (Nordal, 2012). Health insurance was provided by big companies and employers only and number of such employers was very small.
US president Theodore Roosevelt started talking about a national health insurance plan in the year 1912. Though his motive was to gain political benefit from raising this issue but people liked this idea. Baylor hospital introduced a group health insurance scheme for its employees at low cost in the year 1929. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry Truman and various other presidents tried and discussed a national health insurance plan but due to some reasons, failed to deliver any such plan. Irrespective of objections of republicans, US President Obama signed this act and the same came into existence in the year 2010. American Supreme Court upheld Obama care in the year 2012.
How the Obama care idea was derived
America, also known as world super power, is a place where larger percentage of poor people is not getting proper healthcare facilities. American Government passed Obama Care Act after reviewing the poor performance of American healthcare sector as compared to other developed countries. The Act was passed to resolve several issues and complications that existed in healthcare system (Fahmy et al., 2013). According to the government, getting basic healthcare is a fundamental right of all citizens; however, the old healthcare system was not strong enough to fulfill this requirement of the Americans. This resulted into driving the idea for Obama care. The idea behind developing Obama care Act is to show government responsibilities towards people who were dying in absence of any health care facility. It is ethical and moral responsibility of government to provide healthcare facility to all people at affordable rates..Role Models Countries
Several countries like United Kingdom, Canada are ahead of US in providing better health care to its citizens. There are several very good arrangements for the people of these countries and US has to learn a number of things in order to provide similar healthcare facilities to its own citizens. Implementing health care facilities like these countries is a dream of the current government but a lot has to be done in this regard by the American government as well as by the employers.Arguments For and Against Obama care
Obama care Act gained both positive and negative feedbacks. Some people called it as a right decision to fulfill the health care requirements of poor people as well as an economic necessity. On the other hand, a number of people referred it as poorly structured healthcare policy. This new Act created confusion among the people as they are not aware of the benefits offered under the bill and its provisions. Obama care Act gained negative publicity by the media that is one of the main reasons behind negative perception of people about the Act. So much emphasis was given to the negative aspects of the Act that people started considering it as a poor policy. However, the bill is certainly beneficial for those who, earlier, were not in a position to afford any healthcare insurance.
The main goal of Obama care is to provide Americans better access to improved healthcare facilities at lower rates. This Act negatively impacted the medical practitioners by reducing their earnings and limited access to advance technology. Government reduced annual reimbursement amount of medical service providers into order to deal with rising expenses of Obama care. According to this Act doctors and patients can take decisions on the basis of their mutual discussion as all decisions will be governed by government officials in order to control Medicare expenses. These actions are de-motivating for the doctors which resulting into decreasing the accessibility to good doctors.
Obama care Act positively impacts patients by providing them quality healthcare services at affordable rates; however, various doctors stopped taking patients who are insured under Obama care Act. According to a recent research performed by the Government during 2011, doctors denied admitting around 31 percent Medicaid and 17 percent Medicare patients. Present healthcare infrastructure is not sufficient to support additional number of people who are getting insured under the Obama care. Rising expenditure of government due to Obama care will also impact economy of the country. Irrespective of various criticism and drawbacks, the Obama care Act is a hope for poor people who cannot afford private healthcare services.
Businesses Compliance and Implementation of Obama care
Whatever was the intention of president Obama behind introducing this healthcare scheme and howsoever big was the numbers of its beneficiaries, but its compliance and implementation was a real challenge. A whole set of rules, regulations, complex terms and conditions made it one of toughest schemes in terms of implementing. It has been made mandatory to provide health care insurance for employers having 50 or more than 50 employees. Various small organizations also require providing health insurance to their employees if the employer shares ownership and number of employees appears to be more than 50. If any employer fails to provide health insurance to its employees, he will be liable to pay hefty penalty. The situation became worse for the employers.
References
Nordal, K. C. (2012). Healthcare Reform: Implications for Independent Practice. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice , 1-11.
Post, S. o. (2010). Landmark: The Inside Story of America's New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All . USA: PublicAffairs.
S. Fahmy, C. J. McKinley, C. R. Filer and P. J. Wright. (2013). Pulling the Plug on Grandma: Obama’s Health Care Pitch, Media Coverage & Public Opinion. Advances in Journalism and Communication , 19-25.
Troy, T. (2012, June 15). The Health Care Blog. Retrieved August 24, 2012, from www.thehealthcareblog.com: http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2012/06/15/how-the-affordable-care-act-will-affect-doctors/
Wulffson, R. (2012, August 8). ExamHealth. Retrieved August 24, 2012, from www.emaxhealth.com: http://www.emaxhealth.com/11306/affordable-health-care-act-may-impact-medicaid-and-medicare-patients
