Introduction
In the Federal Health Care policy, Obama care is introduced in order to provide American the access to the quality, and affordable health insurance and to decrease the spending on the health care in the United States. It is also introduced in order to expand the quality, affordability, and the availability of the public and private health insurance via regulations, protection of consumer, subsidies, insurance exchange, taxes, and many other reforms.
Thesis Statement
In the Federal Health Care Policy, Obama care is not capable of replacing the private insurance such as Medicare or the Medicaid, it is not capable of regulating the health care, instead it just regulates the health insurance and other worst practices for the profit oriented health care industry.
In this paper, the the Federal Health Care Policy, its pros and cons, its effectiveness, and the consistency, its poor performance, and poor performances of the federal transportation policy, the federal highway policy, federal urban planning and the renewal policy, federal poverty, welfare and unemployment policies, and the national security policies are explained in detail.
History of Obama care
Obama care, which is officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, i.e., PPACA , or in short the Affordable Care Act, i.e., ACA, meant for reforming the industry of the health insurance and the health care system of America as a whole (Pipes, 2010). However, the law contains a provision of above thousand pages that provide more protection and rights to Americans, and also increase their access to the affordable and quality health care. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was, however, signed on 23rd March, 2010, but it was upheld by the ruling of the Supreme Court on 28th June, 2012. However, during the ruling, law was altered in order to allow the state to avoid the increasing access to the Medicaid. The Affordable care Act people procure a private health care plan, pay the tax at the end of the year or get an exemption (Ross & Dressler, 2012).
But, as a matter of fact the Obama Care and the Federal Health Care policy remain unsuccessful in providing effective health care to people. Furthermore, the federal transportation policy, the federal highway policy, the federal urban planning and the renewal policy, federal poverty, welfare and unemployment policies, and the national security policies are also not working effectively. This can be considered from the fact that the in the federal transportation policy, the transportation subsidy is introduced, which is a financial incentive for encouraging the employees in order to utilize the mass transit for the travelling to and from the work. But, at the same time the federal subsidies have paved the way to the useless transit projects.
The federal urban renewal program comprises of the regulation and the planning of the use of private land, and the financial aid in this regard is the effort of the government in order to stop the urban deterioration (Zhang & Fang, 2004). But, the policy failed for effectively planning and regulating the use of the private land, which, as a result, is undergoing urban deterioration. Further, the federal poverty, welfare and unemployment policies are meant for promoting welfare in the society by controlling unemployment and poverty, but they also failed in controlling unemployment, poverty as the rate of unemployment and poverty is constantly increasing. The national security policies are meant for ensuring security at a national level, but as a matter of fact these policies are also not performing their duties as terrorist activities are constantly increasing.
The pros and cons of the Obamacare in the Federal Health Care Policy, can be analyzed by considering the:
- The Policy Effectiveness
- The Policy Consistency
The Policy Effectiveness
Obama Care is just an experiment in the federalism. It can be explained with the help of the fact that one major goal of the health care reform was to decrease the growth of the spending on the health care (Donovan, Smith, Osbon, & Mooney, 2014). The expenditure on health care is expected to rise about 20% of the GDP by the year 2020 in the United States. The federal spending on the Medicare and health care programs for the people of old age and for disabled people is of specific concern. The cost of the Medicare accounted about 3.7% of the GDP in the year 2011, and is growing at a rapid rate as compared to other areas of the federal spending because of the increasing cost of the health care, and the increasing number of people that are eligible for such programs.
The Policy Consistency
The Federal health care policy is inconsistent, which can be analyzed from the implementation of ACA. The implementation of the act is inconsistent as every state has to choose that whether the implementation will be by the Federal Government or by the state. But, as a matter of fact the implementation requires running of the exchanges at the federal level, which is costly, so almost all the states are opting for the exchange programs that are managed federally, but federal government is not managing the exchanges in a proper manner.
Succinctly, in the Federal Health care policy is not working properly, which can be analyzed from the failure of Obama Care to replace the Medicaid and Medicare because of its ineffectiveness and inconsistency.
References
Pipes, S. (2010). The Truth About Obamacare. Regnery Publishing, Washington
Ross, J., & Dressler, D. (2012). Principles and Practice of Hospital Medicine. McGraw Hill, New York
Zang, Y., & Fang, K. (2009). Is History Repeating Itself?: From Urban Renewal in the United States to Inner-City Redevelopment in China. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 23, 286-298
Donovan, T., Smith, D., Osborn, T., & Mooney, C. (2014). State and Local Politics. Nelson Education Limited, Canada
