Research Paper on Affordable Care Act: Expanding Sustainability & Quality of Wellbeing Protections

Introduction

Affordable care act is commonly known as the patient protection (PPACA) and is a law adopted and approved by the United States of America under the leadership of President Baraka Obama in the field of healthcare (Protection, P., & Act, A.C., 2010). The main aim of patient protection and affordable care act is to expand sustainability and quality of wellbeing protections. Furthermore, it also emphases on offering a long term solution to the inability to afford the cost of healthcare by giving social insurance protection particularly to persons who are not able to achieve a cost of health care protections. Therefore, this paper will explicate on the impact of PPACA on patients and health care facilities and providers, student's facility, and budgeting for healthcare providers or facilities.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Impact of PPACA on Patients and Healthcare Facilities and Providers

To begin with, the affordable care act is a law that is adopted to ensure that all patients can afford the cost of healthcare. Moreover, the affordable act has played a crucial role in specifically extending health insurance coverage to the majority of the patients. Insurance coverage is usually attributed to access to health care as a consequence, patient with health insurance are given priority in terms of having better access to health care.

Before the adoption and implementation of the affordable care act, many patients encountered difficulties when accessing healthcare. Majority of the citizens who visited different hospitals were unable to receive treatment mainly because of the high cost of health care. However, after the implementation of the affordable care act, many patients found it easy to access health facilities since they were reasonably priced (Shaw, Asomugha, Conway & Rein, 2014). Additionally, the establishment and expansion of Medicaid coverage have played a crucial role, especially in decreasing the number of uninsured Americans and substantially improving access to health care for individuals who had gained coverage.

Therefore, it is right to state that persons who are insured through the affordable care act are not likely to report that they are not capable of accessing health care because of high costs. Nonetheless, implementation and adoption affordable care act has lowered the number of Americans who are uninsured, thus improving healthcare access, especially to persons who have gained coverage.

Affordable care act aims at expanding health insurance coverage to many patients. On the other hand, the American health care system has had different setbacks, such as workforce shortages for years. Hence it has not put in place adequate measures to meet the entry of many patients (Shaw et al. 2014) Training of other health care providers takes years. Hence the available healthcare providers will face the common challenge of attending to many patients.

How PPACA is Impacting Student's Facility

Traditionally, the health centers of students have always been funded by a fee known as health fee that caters for different services that are offered at the health center. During the last years, the cost of health care increase, and budgets tightened in the higher education sector; thus, the health centers of various campuses began to increase fees for certain services offered in the health centers. The added fees cater for incidental expenses such as laboratory tests, medications, and also vaccinations. Nonetheless, most health centers on the campus have limited expertise; hence, students pay all costs.

Therefore, the implementation and adoption of affordable care act play an essential role in expanding and offering affordable services to insured students (Huntoon, McCluney, Scannell, Wiley, Bruno, Andrew & Gorman, 2011). Moreover, the majority of the students will greatly benefit because they will be able to have quality health insurance, which will cater to out of pocket costs. Accordingly, students will quickly learn that visiting health care centers on campus means that they will continue to pay for services. Furthermore, affordable care act will ensure that many students will benefit from quality health insurance that will cater for all expenses of health care in health centers (Huntoon et al. 2011). This is of great essence and benefit to students because when they visit a health care provider outside campus, they will not experience out of pocket charges.

Impact of PPACA on Costs and Budgeting for Healthcare Providers or Facilities

Firstly, the main aim of the affordable care act is to expand and extend health insurance coverage to many Americans. As a consequence, medical spending will increase because every uninsured person who benefits from health insurance coverage is likely to incur additional annual expenses of Medicare (Yoder- Wise, 2015). Moreover, Congressional budget office asserts that the spending on uninsured persons after being insured will automatically increase.

Secondly, the affordable care act will modernize health care services delivery and also aid in reducing insurer administration hence causing decreases in private insurance premiums. On the other hand, private premiums are likely to be affected by different provisions. Lastly, the affordable care act will reduce the federal deficit over the years, for example, 2010-2019. As a result, reducing employer expenditure for health insurance and will spontaneously lead to increase in payments in terms of salaries and wages which are taxed by the government (Publication Manual of the Psychological Association, 2010). For instance, excess taxes imposed on high premium health insurance plans will lead to the introduction of robust incentive.

Conclusion

In conclusion, from the discussion above, it is evident that the affordable care act aims at intensifying health insurance coverage in the United States of America. Taken all together, it is clear that the implementation and adoption of the affordable care act will play a vital role in guaranteeing that all patients are capable of accessing health care. This demonstrates that currently, the majority of Americans have health insurance.

References

Huntoon, K. M., McCluney, C. J., Scannell, C. A., Wiley, E. A., Bruno, R., Andrews, A., & Gorman, P. (2011). Healthcare reform and the next generation: United States medical student attitudes toward the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. PloS one, 6(9), e23557.

Shaw, F. E., Asomugha, C. N., Conway, P. H., & Rein, A. S. (2014). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: opportunities for prevention and public health. The Lancet, 384(9937), 75-82.

Protection, P., & Act, A. C. (2010). Patient protection and affordable care act. Public law, 111(48), 759-762.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (2010). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. ISBN 1433805618.

Yoder-Wise, P.S. (2015). Leading and managing in nursing (6th ed.). Mosby-Elsevier. ISBN: 978-0-323-18577-6.