Position Paper
Introduction
The United States’ health care system has for a long time been operated and owned by the private sector. In fact, about fifty-eight percent of the community hospitals are accredited to the non-governmental organizations. An average of about 60-65 percent is accounted for from programs such as the Veterans Health Administration, Medicare, Children’s Health Insurance Program and Medicare. This has ensured a smooth functioning of the healthcare system especially when it is compared to the systems of different countries.
According to the Migration Health Annual Report (2004), from the Institute of Medicine, it is evident that despite the United States of America being an industrialized nation, its entire population is not guaranteed to quality health care. In essence, a greater percentage of United States’ population that is of age below sixty-five years is not assured of surpassing the 65 years mark. On this note, questions regarding the quality, access, impartiality, cost, and choice on health care emerged, and hence the reforms on the country’s health care system.
Also, when comparing the life expectancy and infant mortality rates amongst the world’s most industrialized nations such as Germany, it is the truth that the United States has a higher infant mortality rate. Furthermore, the report notes that the USA’s health care system is ranked to be among the most expensive in the world.
Ranging from high-cost pharmaceutical products to expensive health care provision, the health care system in the United States of America has been proven to be difficult to a majority of its population. It was observed that approximately 18,000 deaths occur yearly, unnecessarily, in the United States due to lack of health insurance (Faguet, 2013).
Position Supporting Obamacare Act
Also known as the Patient Control and Affordable Care Act, the Obamacare Act was signed into law by the incumbent president of the United States of America on March 23rd, 2010. The main purpose of the law was to address the health care crisis in America as well as making health insurance affordable and expanding its availability to a greater percentage of the uninsured population of the nation (United States, 2015).
According to Hall Lord (2014), the law facilitates the availability of covers to every individual indiscriminately. The physically challenged as well as the aged population are catered for by the plan. This thereby makes the policy available to everyone irrespective of age or disability as well as all level of discrimination.
Actually, the law ensures that all Americans have access to affordable and quality health care. The Patient Control and Protection Act dictated that all American citizens should have insurance covers by the year 2014. This condition, in a way, makes the citizens have access to medical cover thus increasing efficiency and effectiveness. According to Gorin (2010), the provisions of the Obamacare Act reduces the general costs of health care by offering insurance to all citizens as well availing free preventive care.
The law is also an ideal platform for time saves as well as helping in avoiding the tedious processes in acquiring insurance covers by enabling the purchasing of insurance covers directly over-the-counter. As such, it makes it easy for citizens to access the various insurance covers and also increases its availability to Americans thereby eliminating excuses for not having insurance policies that has been the case in the olden days.
Also, by regulating insurance cover schemes, the government is accountable to its citizens and also prevents probable extortion of the American population. For instance, insurance providers are prohibited from denying people insurance due to reasons related to preexisting conditions. Further, all insurance plans acquired via off the insurance exchange must cover all the ten essential benefits and contain the minimum actuarial value.
Position against Obamacare Law
Over 30 million Americans with private insurance policies have had their plans annulled by the providers due to the plan not meeting the ten essential health benefits. This is so because the policies’ replacement costs are higher as they offer services such as maternity care that are not needed by many citizens (Rawal, 2016).
Around three to five million Americans might lose their plans that are sponsored by their respective. As such, many companies find it rather cheaper to pay the stated penalties than allowing their respective employees buy plans on the exchanges. This cheap alternative way marks the weaknesses of the Obamacare policy.
Generally, the Patient control and Affordable Act has increased taxation in many ways. For instance, those without insurance policies will be assessed taxation. Statistics indicate that taxation was raised on people with incomes above 200, 000 U.S dollars. On calculating the figure on the increased taxation, it translates to about 2.35 percent up from the earlier figure of 1.45 percent (Faguet, 2013).
The Act has altered Medicare compensates hospitals by introducing the value-based payment and replacing the fee-for-service mode. However much of the new system reduces costs in the long-run, it creates an agonizing transition in the short term. In a way, patients will have access to preventive care services such as tests for cholesterol, cancer, and diabetes that would see an increase in medical spending on a short-term basis.
In my views, the policy has generally reduced the costs of healthcare provision. By including free preventive care in the policies, the Act ensures that citizens get early treatment before acquiring chronic illnesses.
The Patient Control and Affordable Act allow parents to include children up to the age of twenty-six on their respective policies. Despite entitling these individuals to medical cover, the insurance providers’ providers are increased without necessarily increasing the costs on the children covered by the policies. Statistics indicate that over three million young individuals, who were previously uninsured, were added to the available plans as of the year 2012 (United States, 2015).
In the coming ten years, the United States of America’s budget deficit is projected to be lowered with the Obamacare Act in place (United States, 2015). This is so because the reduction in costs of healthcare is accounted for by the Act. As such, the costs are now shifted to pharmaceutical firms and healthcare providers and in a way, raising taxes. It is projected that in the next ten years, the healthcare bill that was passed will help cut the budget deficit by approximately 143 billion U.S. dollars.
The Bill also cuts the federal expenditure in providing healthcare to its residents since the central government funds them in facilitating the plan. As a measure to foster this program, insurance-providing companies have to, without question, to avail justification to the respective federal governing authorities for all rate fluctuations.
The Obamacare Act requires that insurance companies divert a minimum of eighty percent of premium collected from executive wages to medical services’ expenditure. This regulation ensures that the citizens get back their money in case the companies fail to adhere to this condition.
Normative Response on the Obamacare
Despite the Act having quite a number of benefits, there are also some existing cons regarding the policy. It should be noted that however much the scheme is linked to the incumbent president, it was actually a blueprint of the former president Bill Clinton dating back to 1993 (Rawal, 2016). The Clinton’s administration, via the Health Security Act, proposed reforms that included mandatory health insurance coverage for all citizens a fee-for-service scheme among others. Despite the proposals, the plan failed to take off due to political reasons.
Politically, it is also perceived that the Obamacare initiative might as well fail due to change of the presidency with the oncoming elections as he is set to leave office soon, as per the constitution. On his part, President Obama should have come with different strategies on reforming the health care. During the presidential campaigns in seeking the second term for the presidency, the strategy was used as a campaign tool and was not actually genuine at heart.
In my opinion, the policy is kind of complicated in many ways. The Act covers two varied fields and unrelated fields; insurance and healthcare. This complex makes it hard for common citizens to understand its importance. For instance, there are four levels that are being offered (Gorin, 2010). These include Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze, therefore making it hard for potential policy holders to decide and choose among the four, Further, there are also some differences among the insurance companies regarding deductibles, co-pays, and the co-insurance levels. The government should have conducted mass education in accordingly informing its citizens about the plan before passing it into law.
References
Faguet, G. B. (2013). The Affordable Care Act: A missed opportunity, a better way forward.
Gorin, S. H. (2010). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Cost Control, and the Battle for Health Care Reform. Health & Social Work, 35(3), 163-166. doi:10.1093/hsw/35.3.163
Hall, M. A., & Lord, R. (2014). Obamacare: what the Affordable Care Act means for patients and physicians. BMJ, 349(oct22 7), g5376-g5376. doi:10.1136/bmj.g5376
Migration Health Annual Report. Geneva: IOM, 2004. Print.
Rawal, P. H. (2016). The Affordable Care Act: Examining the facts.
United States. (2015). State of competition in the health care marketplace: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's impact on competition : hearing before the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, first session, September 10, 2015.
