Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Essay Sample)

Assignment Title: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Student’s Name Course Title Instructor’s Name Date Introduction This act got termed as the Obamacare. It created a lot of controversies as the policy makers, together with the health practitioners locked horns on the act. The most divided were a body was the Congress as the two rival parties had diverse views on the bill (Jones et al., 2014). Its first part got enacted on March 23, 2010. The key aims of this bill were to provide fair, affordable, and easy to comprehend and highly subsidized health to the medium income earners. It also targeted low-income earners in the American society. However, the confusion surrounding its use made a lot of people reject its implementation. Discussion Under the Affordable Care Act, patients could keep their plans up to 2015 whether or not they comply with the ACA. However, after that period, plans that do not meet the requirement of ACA will get cancelled and individuals compelled to choose a new scheme. Plans cancellation will take effect on those plans that fail to meet the requirements on the protection offered by the ACA, human rights, and benefits that should get enjoyed by the patients (Protection, 2012). Such cancellation will aim to ensure that all insurance providers comply with the requirements of ACA. One area where the confusion arose was the issue of patients keeping their doctors. Can I keep my physician under the Affordable Care Act? First, no portion of the Affordable Care Act stated that patients could not maintain their doctors (Protection, 2012). However, the issue of network steps in to complicate the matter further. The network of hospitals and physicians one can get access to gets determined by the provider and not by the new health care law. This move implies that the insurance company can offer the patient a new plan or change the existing scheme. Under such situation, the patient does not have a guarantee that they will be able to keep their physicians. This approach implies that if you want to purchase a new plan, make sure that the doctor is listed on the network depicted in that plan. This data is available on the website of the service provider. After verifying that the physician is on that network, call them to confirm that they accept the marketing plan. This move is the best way to keep the doctors under the new law. The Affordable Healthcare Act had positive impacts on the citizens, the federal government, states government and the health practitioners (Borochin & Golec, 2016). First, the federal government will fund the health costs for the first three years, hence offsetting the high cost needed for the states to provide health to the citizens. This funding will reduce after that. However, the entire scheme will cost the federal government massive amounts of ...