Essay Sample on Barak Obama's ACA: Wider Access to Healthcare or Controversy?

Introduction

Barak Obama famously introduced the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as a strategy of ensuring American citizens get wider access to medical insurance covers. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has brought significant changes to the American healthcare sector. It is also undeniable that those alterations have been mired with controversy. For example, in 2014, only 38 percent of respondents wanted the healthcare law to continue. Most critics of the act have not strategically recognized its shortcomings or provided plausible, detailed, market-based alternatives towards solving these flaws. The political theory will illuminate a succinct review of the history of reforms on the continuing challenges of the ACA in 2010. The paper will also provide a detailed analysis of the efficacy of the political theory during the development stage with rational theory, and examining different standpoints from stakeholders.

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Political Theory Assessing the Affordable Care Act in the Post Obama Era

The emerging pressures on the health care system developed the political conditions for President Bill Clinton to make health care policy a central agenda of his 1992 election campaign (Kirsch, 2013). It also rallied many players in the health industry like the American Hospital Association and nonprofit health insurance firms to develop a health care plan. In the mid-2000s there was a political disaster, such as augmenting cost pressures on consumers, and the rising number of uninsured Americans (Kirsch, 2013). This made the Clinton government initiate a detailed health reform back to the political agenda (Kirsch, 2013).

Strategic Factors for The Implementation of the Affordable Care Act

An Acceptable Policy Approach

By 2008, many reformers were committed to the proposals meant to accomplish their central policy objectives with fewer disruptions to the current health care system. The reformers wanted to appeal to two groups of audiences (Kirsch, 2013). The first was the health care sector, aiming to win the support of major organizational players and evade industry-financed opposition that ended their previous efforts (Kirsch, 2013). They also wanted to please the public, as the reforms would address the biggest worry of not being able to access insurance coverage. The concept for this approach to regional reforms was conceptualized in Massachusetts and was passed into law in 2006 (Kirsch, 2013).

The first decision that the advocates in Massachusetts-including customers, labor unions were to focus was on the objective of all state residents instead of controlling health care costs only (Kirsch, 2013). The reformers intentionally adopted the idea from the conservative and liberal scopes, developing an approach that would favor the then-Governor Mitt Romney (Kirsch, 2013). The framework they established was passed into law (Kirsch, 2013). It was also guided by four integral pillars of the existing health care coverage system. Medicaid, Medicare, Employer aided coverage, and private insurance (Oberlander, 2016). In Massachusetts, workers were encouraged to take up Medicare or employer-provided coverage due to the small contribution fee it had (Kirsch, 2013).

The Massachusetts regulations appealed to most of the constituencies, particularly the consumer groups as they would have broader access to affordable health care coverage, as opposed to the Bill Clinton era (Kirsch, 2013). Health care providers got new consumers, and hospitals would get more patients and the rate of uninsured American citizens plummeted at a significant rate (Oberlander, 2016). The only individuals that were not appealed with the Massachusetts policy were the advocators of the public health insurance or single-payer system as they wanted everyone to be insured by the government as a whole (Kirsch, 2013).

The Effectiveness of the Political Reforms of the Affordable Care Act on Institutional Theory

The ACA was established in 2010 to create major changes in the health care system, which will be geared towards enhancing the coverage of health care services like insurance covers for all Americans (Kirsch, 2013). The act mainly targeted middle- and low-class households. The institutional theory relates to the political aspects of ACA because it also tackles politics policy and the successful elements in the formulation and implementation of the ACA (Alam, 2017).

Multiple Streams Model Was Preferred During the ACA Policy Development Stage

The interpretation theory also introduces the Multiple Streams Model that explains the development and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (Alam, 2017). The model lays its emphasis on contingency rather than certainty on the nature of policy formulation in the United States (Alam, 2017). Therefore, policymakers must have a basic knowledge about the structuring process, so that they can comprehensively and correctly implement a given policy issue (Alam, 2017). Politics is an integral element of the Multiple Streams Model during the policy-making phase.

The aspects of politics occur when the policymakers have the intention to transform the problem into proposed solutions (Alam, 2017). For example, the ACC was implemented by Massachusetts legislatures to increase the access of medical covers to the number of American citizens in the low and middle class (Alam, 2017). Policymakers conclude on an overarching analysis of the current problem, and the researchers draft various solutions after doing a thorough analysis of a particular government policy that is urgently required (Alam, 2017).

The window of opportunity during the proposed implementation is seen when government officials put their attention to eventually generate policy solutions (Alam, 2017). When a problem is great in society, policymakers make significant efforts to develop a solution to solve the problems. for example, ACC was developed as a result of the need to increase the medical cover to low- and middle-class citizens who fail to access technical and essential medical care due to high medical costs (Alam, 2017). Policy opportunities open up when a new policy problem emerges in the politics stream during the policy development phase. For instance, high prices of medical services will provide a window of opportunity for the increase of funding of Medicare and Medicaid (Alam, 2017). Two streams need to merge together, so as the policymakers can reach the maximum level of the window of opportunity (Alam, 2017). The major problem that ACA during the implementation stage was due to increased premiums over the last decade (Alam, 2017). High deductibles and the effects of augmenting health care prices hindered workers in small organizations to provide enough health care insurance to their workers (Alam, 2017).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the paper has provided a broad analysis of the implementation process of the ACA in the context of political systems theory, and multiple streams model as an aspect of institutional theory. The acceptable policy approach is an example of political theory that explains how the Massachusetts reform panel implemented ACA to provide four major elements; the existing health care coverage system. Medicaid, Medicare, Employer aided coverage and private insurance. The overall goal was to improve access to affordable health care coverage for low- and middle-class citizens.

References

Alam, S. (2017). Effectiveness of Multiple Stream Model Theory in American Government for the development of the Affordable Care Act of 2010: Creating a major reform for all American health care patients. 1-18. Retrieved from: file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/Affordable_care_act_2017_1.docx1%20(1).pdf

Kirsch, R. (2013). The politics of Obamacare: Health care, money, and ideology. Fordham L. Rev., 81, 1737. Retrieved from: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4861&context=flr

Oberlander, J. (2016). Implementing the Affordable Care Act: The promise and limits of health care reform. Journal of health politics, policy and law, 41(4), 803-826. Retrieved from: https://read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/article/41/4/803/13901/Implementing-the-Affordable-Care-Act-The-Promise