Abstract
The landmark United States healthcare reform law—the Affordable Care Act—provides an opportunity to study the dynamics in healthcare sector.This article posits that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) constitutes an effective public policy alternative that remedies some of the previous problems which existed in America's healthcare system. The ACA seeks to reform the private insurance market, expand Medicaid to the working poor and to change the way medical decisions are made in end-of-life decisions. The central hypothesis of this paper is that the ACA is an improved alternative to the previous policy regime on healthcare in the United States. This hypothesis is unambiguously supported by the rational resource allocation model together with a host of other heuristic approaches. Claims made in this paper also relied on findings of empirical studies, reports, and evaluative studies on the performance of the ACA since its enactment into national legislation under the Obama administration.
TopFocus Of The Article
In this article, the author will discuss reports reflecting empirical studies of various dimensions focused on the ACA. As readers will note, these studies ranged from investigations of the apparent gender differences in support for the policy (Lizottle, 2015), the impact of the policy on dependent coverage mandate on insurance premiums (Depen and Bailey, 2015), and the implications of the ACA expansion to young adults in terms of inpatient hospitalizations (Antwi, Moriya and Simon, 2015).
Some of the findings presented in these empirical studies confirmed the proposition that the ACA has led to improvement and thus exercised a positive impact on the healthcare system in the United States. However, other findings (see for example, Garson, 2000) also point to the fact that there are still greater tasks ahead in producing a healthcare system that is both affordable and that ensures quality of care for all population groups in the United States.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Healthcare: The maintenance and improvement of physical and mental health, especially through the provision of medical services.
Policy Model: The rational model of decision-making is a process for making sound decisions in policy-making in the public sector.
Medicaid: It is a health care program that assists low-income families or individuals in paying for doctor visits, hospital stays, long-term medical, custodial care costs and more. Medicaid is a joint program, funded primarily by the federal government and run at the state level, where coverage may vary.
MCA (Medical Care Act): The federal government passed the Medical Care Act in 1966, which offered to reimburse, or cost share, one-half of provincial and territorial costs for medical services provided by a doctor outside hospitals.
Obamacare: An informal term for a federal law intended to improve access to health insurance for US citizens.
Insurance Market: The insurance market is simply the buying and selling of insurance.
ACA(Affordable Care Act): Contains comprehensive health insurance reforms and includes tax provisions that affect individuals, families, businesses, insurers, tax-exempt organizations and government entities.