Essay On The Pros And Cons Of Obamacare

In light of the recent and controversial election of President-Elect Donald Trump, perhaps no economic issue plagues the minds of Americans as much as the Affordable Healthcare Act—colloquially referred to as “Obamacare”. It’s no secret that in the United States, healthcare accounts for a significant amount of government spending “consuming 17.1% percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013, about 50 percent more than any other country” (The Commonwealth Fund, 2015). In response to rising healthcare costs, policymakers have sought various methods to stunt the rise in price, “such as reducing the burden of lawsuits on the health care system, encouraging more competition among healthcare providers, and promoting greater use of information technology” (Mankiw, 2012, p.239). In 2010, Congress enacted and President Barack Obama signed into law the divisive and ill-fated Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act (the ACA)–despite vehement protest and dissatisfaction from the Republican Party. The law was implemented with the goal of …show more content…
In particular, Obamacare has hurt a number of small businesses, negatively impacted insurance premiums, and passed reforms that have adversely affected the medical industry and workers (“Obamacare: Pros and cons of Obamacare,” 2015). Another of the many failures of Obamacare was that it caused many people to lose the insurance plans they already had. Antos et.al (2015) states that the “goal of any reform should be to ensure that those who like the coverage they have are able to retain it (or a substantially similar plan)” (p.20). Obamacare with its many mandates, requirements, and regulations, essentially ensured that millions of citizens lost their previous coverage. Moreover, the ACA itself confirms that the existing employer-sponsored health insurance system will also substantially change (Antos et.al., 2015,