Health Insurance Researchc Assignment: Affordable Care Act (Essay Sample)

Affordable Care Act
Name
Institution
Affordable Care Act
Affordable Care Act famously known as Obamacare was enacted to improve access to healthcare by making it more affordable. While there are supporters of the policy, many still criticize it claiming that it has and will not achieve its goals due to structural problems. The following discussion compares and contrasts literature from two articles that support the act and two others that criticize it.
According to Blumenthal, Abrams & Nuzum, (2015) ACA has influenced positively most critical aspects of health care systems across USA. The article asserts that the act has increased availability of affordable health insurance as well as care access. As of 2015, the number of individuals who were uninsured that had gained coverage since the enactment of ACA has increased from 7 million to 16.4 million. Also, the author states that contrary to the critics of failure of ACA in facilitating health care delivery system the law provides the most appropriate approach in history to address challenges of the structure.
According to the article, the act also makes the government more innovative and nimble. This has been made possible through its role of paying 43% of national health bill, which makes the government devise ways to respond to constantly changing health care environment. The successes of ACA are confirmed by Skinner & Chandra, (2016) who asserts that despite several setbacks and compromises the act has met its primary goal, which was to increase the number of insured individuals. The authors also state that although the act has been successful in slowing down the increase in healthcare spending which made the healthcare affordable from 2010 to 2014.
On the other hand, Chaufan, (2015) asserts that the ACA has not yet resolved the problem of healthcare access and even of more concern it is unlikely to resolve it. Although it expanded coverage to about 31 million citizens in USA, most of them will remain uninsured by 2024. Additionally, the act is unlikely to decrease to substantially the financial barriers in healthcare. Medical bankruptcy in USA, which is one of the primary cause of personal bankruptcy, affects most insured people. Many insured citizens have already indicated that care cost is still a significant barrier after the ACA. The author asserts that in 2012 80 million individuals asserted that in 2011 they did not visit doctors after falling sick and never filled a prescription due to high cost. Another 75 million asserted that they had challenges paying the hospital bills while 28 million reported they paid the bills using their saving and 4 million declared bankruptcy in the last two years.
In addition, the act is unlikely to guarantee continuity of healthcare. Like other healthcare policies act, ACA depends on numerous insurers who should compete for consumers. Access relies on market factors such as profitability and price just like eligibility and coverage to a given care source. In...