Affordable Care Act (ACA)

Beneficial Impacts of the ACA (Affordable Care Act)

Despite its ever-surrounding controversy, the Affordable Care Act has brought forth numerous benefits to Americans more so in the healthcare department. Similarly, health policies impact various stakeholders in different ways (Teitelbaum & Wilensky, 2016). These Affordable Care Act impacts apply to individuals, families, small business owners as well as insurance companies.

Before the passing of this mandate, small business owners faced numerous disadvantages regarding health insurance as they paid 18% more per employees than bigger companies. However, with the passage of the ACA, lifetime limited as well as preexisting limits were slashed and for small firms with less than 25 employees, this mandate has been effective in providing tax credits for business owners with intentions to give health insurance to their employees (Teitelbaum & Wilensky, 2016). Businesses with less than fifty employees have also benefited from accessing optional group health coverage from this mandate while enjoying favorable rates. Additionally, in such settings, when an employee gets sick and cannot afford healthcare he shows up for work sick risking infecting other employees. This mandate has covered employees in “informal” settings like restaurants, auto shops or lawn-care businesses (Teitelbaum & Wilensky, 2016).

The ACA also brought significant changes to families. For instance, senior citizens can now pay less for Medicare coverage as well as for their prescriptions. Families receive free contraceptives, cholesterol tests and mammograms (Gruessner, 2017). Another benefit is that those with pre-existing conditions are taken care of unlike the past where they were chased away families without health insurance coverage are expected to pay a penalty at tax time referred to as individual mandate. Families are also eligible for premium tax credits (discounts) (Teitelbaum & Wilensky, 2016).

ACA provisions have also impacted insurance companies in that health payers have had to incur additional spending to cater for medical services of the sickest populations. At the same time, hospitals and emergency care providers do not have to manage uncompensated care anymore because of the Medicaid expansion as well as the individual mandate (Gruessner, 2017). This has led to payers creating provider networks to cater for the elevated spending which in turn causes problems to physicians in regards to referrals. Lastly, consumers have had to face higher insurance rates that it was the case before. The ACA has also incorporated preventive services like immunizations and cancer screenings which have ed the insurers to invest in scale (Gruessner, 2017).

References

Gruessner, V. (2017). How the Affordable Care Act Changed the Face of Health Insurance.

Retrieved from: < https://healthpayerintelligence.com/features/how-the-affordable-care-act-changed-the-face-of-health-insurance >

Teitelbaum, J, B. & Wilensky, S, E. (2016). Essentials of Health Policy and Law.