The Affordable Care Act

Superior Essays
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or more commonly known as Obamacare, was implemented on March 23, 2010. The Affordable Care Act is meant to “provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in healthcare spending, and for other purposes” (“Health Care Reform Timeline”). The plan is to reform and rebuild the national health care system. The health care system must be reformed because millions of people are without health insurance since it is too expensive. Many drug prescriptions are not affordable, leaving many people without the proper treatment. Obamacare also hopes to reduce spending and the cost to taxpayers. Another reason plans like Obamacare are needed is so insurance companies do no have …show more content…
The America’s Healthy Future Act changed the Social Security Act and added a new title XXII, which is the Health Insurance Coverage, to ensure that all Americans have affordable health care coverage. In fact, the American Healthy Future Act was done by Senator Max Baucus. The American Healthy Future Act had health benefit plans that were being offered to individuals and small group markets on a guaranteed issues and guaranteed renewal basis. Even though it had similarities to the Affordable Health Care Act, thirty-nine Republicans voted against the American Healthy Future Act (“Congress.gov”). Finally, in January 2010, Scott Brown, who is a Republican, won the election in Massachusetts to finalize the terms of Ted Kennedy, the US Senator. Senator Brown was against the health care law. However, he still won in a primarily …show more content…
Brand name prescriptive drugs were discounted 50 percent in addition to a discount that will close the gap by 2020. Employers with less than 25 employees and an average wage of less than $50,000 because eligible for a sliding scale tax credit; however, this only happens if the organization provides health insurance and pays at least 50 percent of the cost. Another change in the year 2012 because of the Affordable Health Care Act is that non for profit insurance partners were asked to challenge commercial insurers with a lower premium. Individuals also saw a reduction in Medicare reimbursements to hospitals that have higher rates of patient re-admissions. Under the Affordable Health Care Act, we saw in 2013 the contributions to tax-sheltered flexible spending accounts minimized to $2,500 that year; there was also a reduction in medical expenses above 7.5 percent of income for individuals over 65 years old. Furthermore, a 3.8 percent surcharge on investment income was applied to individuals that make over $200,000. With this tax increase, it brought $210 billion to help fund the health reform program. Going down the timeline, we can see that in 2014, insurance companies were forbidden from denying health care coverage to those with a pre-existing condition or, refusing to renew health care

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