Effect of the Affordable Care Act on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Insurance Coverage (Essay Sample)

Effect of the Affordable Care Act on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Insurance Coverage
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Effect of the Affordable Care Act on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Insurance Coverage
Introduction
It is important to clearly state that health care is one on the core need of humans today. Without health's care, the human race will be faced with a lot of challenges. Human lives will be shortened and distorted by the unavailability of health care facilities. All over the world, a good number of lives have been lost due to unavailability of health care facilities. Provision of health services has become one of the foremost concerns of governments, NGOs, and even private individual. It is important to state that basic and efficient health care should be made available for people irrespective of their age, race, and social status. A good number of people in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to affordable medical, this due to the high cost of medical care. These countries' Medicare is not subsidized by their government due to mismanagement of funds and the high degree of corruption in public service, (WHO 2008). This essay will focus its attention on the effect of the Affordable Care Act on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Insurance Coverage in the United State of America.
The Affordable Care Act
In March 2010, the president of the United States of America Baraka Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the purpose of this act was to provide some comprehensive reforms aimed at improving and expounding access to affordable health care for all Americans. The law was also put in place to provide customer protection, preventing restrictions and abusive practices by health insurance companies operating in the USA. It is also important to state that the affordable care act was meant to introduce some reforms, providing broader coverage. The United state has maintained its status of providing the one of the best health insurance scheme among industrialized countries of the world (Sylvia Ventura, 2016).
In the year 2016, the ACA turned six, there have been some challenges that have faced the affordable health care act in America, it's in inception was a hampered by the launch of a federal government own website called healthcare.gov. This site was meant to cover 36 states, insurance exchange. Performance issues and cost of repairs associated to heathcare.gov has cost taxpayers an excess of tens of millions of dollars; this figure is also expected to be on the increase, this cost of health insurance has raised some debate nationwide (Sylvia Ventura, 2016).
The ACA in America has put in place a couple of changes in the health insurance landscape, these changes include, the new Act provided Americans with the ability of selection and purchasing insurance on state exchanges and number of federal marketplaces. The act also put in place provision of subsidies and tax credits which can help qualified Americas lower their premiums. The new Act also ensures the guaranteed available coverage, preventing the possibility of denial of preexisting conditions; it also expanded coverage and eliminated out of pocket cost for illness such as flu shots and birth control. The act also expanded dependant's coverage age up to the age of 26, (Sylvia Ventura, 2016).
It is important also to point out the there has been some reports and complaints about rising in premium; there is a need to fully comprehend whether the ACA is putting factors in place to ensure that heath insurance is kept within reach of an average America citizen. With the current coverage of 20 million American six years after inception, it is important to stress that ACA has marked a milestone in its quest to make affordable health care within reach of every American but more can still be done, (Sylvia Ventura, 2016).
Effect of the Affordable Care Act on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Insurance Coverage
At the junction is important look at specific effects of the affordable care act on racial and ethnic disparities in health insurance coverage, its important to note that America is a multiethnic country with a number of Whites, Blacks, Hispanic and Latino Americans and even Asians, this group represent majority and minority (Karen at el 2015). This essay will provide information about the accessibility of ACA to each ethnic group in America. ACA has been put in place to eliminate effects of federal agencies and professional organization on public health care. The affordable care act promised to remove disparities in health and medicine, this it intends to do by promoting access to equal and more efficient health.
It is important to state that six years after the act was launched researchers are still finding some issues associated with access quality and outcomes. In the 2014 disparity interest group at the Academy Health Annual Research meeting provided information about specific areas to consider when looking at the disparity, this area includes different access to health insurance; it looked at medical homes and accountable care organization. Although ACA offers some valuable ways to reduce disparities and gap, the process is based upon if the opportunity at ACA will help or prevent population risk.
The effect of this inability of ACA to handle these existing disparities this that there still exist a large number of people that not be covered by ACA. Nationally, currently in America there are more than 2.5 million poor uninsured adults. The groups of people that fall into the uncovered portion are largely minors and poor adults who cannot afford insurance premium. A good number of non-white Hispanics and blacks currently lack insurance coverage this is mainly due to low income. Statistics shows that in America 49% of the uninsured adults in the coverage are represented as follows, 31% blacks, 18% non- white Hispanics, (kff 2015).
States that have not put in place the medical expansion some poor adult with income below federal poverty line fall into the uncovered, this is because they are term ineligible for health insurance, and at such, they are mostly like to remain uninsured. The major effects of the coverage disparity vary by race and ethnicity, a good number of poor and uninsur...