Essay Sample on Health Care Transformation in the USA

Introduction

The Affordable Care Act was signed in March 2010 with the aim of providing affordable health insurance for the US citizens. The law gives rights and protections that make medical health cover more attainable and affordable for everyone. This paper seeks to look in depth on the important elements of the Act, its impact on the community and public health and the role of nurses in implementing the law.

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The Act has specific features that distinctively define it. One of the features is that this law seeks to fulfill three major goals towards improving access to health care and the quality of medical services (Sen & DeLeire, 2018). Firstly, the regulation seeks to make health insurance affordable and available to more patients. Secondly, the rule intends to expand on the Medicaid program in order to cater to adults with incomes below the federal poverty levels. The Medicaid, as opposed to the legislation, is maintained by the government as a social welfare program for low-income earners (Weber, 2015). Lastly, it strives to assist innovative medical delivery methods created to reduce the costs of health care in general.

There are also four key outstanding features of the regulation that seeks to protect the citizens and tame the service providers. Firstly, the law requires that insurance plans cover citizens with pre-existing conditions like pregnancies without charging extra (Sen & DeLeire, 2018). Secondly, it provides for free preventive care meaning that citizens can receive treatment before they are accorded emergency room services. Thirdly, the legislation holds insurance companies responsible for rate increases. Therefore, the insurance companies cannot increase or reduce the rates at their own discretion (Weber, 2015). The law also dictates that insurance coverage must provide for ten essential health benefits including mental health services, pregnancy, and childbirth.

The Affordable Care Act led to the transformation of healthcare in various ways. To begin with, the Act has directly affected service providers in the medical fraternity especially the health insurance providers (Sen & DeLeire, 2018). In addition, the rule has affected pharmaceutical companies and medical machine manufacturers. For the insurance companies, they had to cancel many of people's health plans because many of their policies did not cover the ten essential services as required by the new regulation. For pharmaceutical companies, they have to pay for the extra amount in fees that caters for the gap in Medicare (Weber, 2015). Additional costs can push these companies to increase the drug costs to consumers. In addition, medical appliance manufacturers and importers incur charges through paying for the excise tax.

The regulation also has impacted the community and public health especially with regards to the ten essential public health services. Concerning community and public health, three key elements are evident (Weber, 2015). First, since the law seeks to expand insurance coverage, public health departments may move services from government agencies to the private sector. Secondly, new models for service delivery in the public health sector will have to be developed to utilize community efforts as well as those of the public health (Sen & DeLeire, 2018). Finally, public health services, which will be reaching out to more people, will be incorporated with community efforts to offer quality services.

Nurses have specific roles to play in the implementation of the Affordable Act. One of the roles is the creation of new opportunities for nurses in offering quality care as they have a role to play in its implementation (Weber, 2015). Nurses can devise innovative ways to increase people's access to care, for instance, through home visiting programs. In addition, health caregivers can embrace technology to improve the quality of services.

Conclusion

Conclusively, Affordable and access to health and quality health services is a fundamental human right that citizens must enjoy. As a result, it is the responsibility of government to ensure that people are accorded with this right, and the Affordable Care Act seeks to fulfill this obligation. The law also gives an opportunity for the community to access quality and safe health care because of the well-defined roles of a nurse.

References

Sen, A. P., & DeLeire, T. (2018). How does expansion of public health insurance affect risk pools and premiums in the market for private health insurance? Evidence from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces. Health economics, 27(12), 1877-1903.

Weber, R. J. (2015). Issues facing pharmacy leaders in 2015: suggestions for Pharmacy strategic planning. Hospital Pharmacy, 50(2), 167-172.