Health Care Reforms: Key Issues, Benefits, Challenges (Essay Sample)

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Health Care Reforms
Health is a sensitive issue that affects every living individual and as such, requires a lot of attention with regards to the way individuals live. Regretfully, in situations where the health status of an individual requires special attention and treatment, such individuals often find it difficult to keep up with the raging costs of healthcare services. To help better prepare for the unforeseen future, insurance companies have introduced insurance plans whose purpose is to cover the insurance policy holders against health related issues. However, despite this noble gesture, these companies result into deceiving their clients by offering costly covers. To alleviate this menace, state and federal governments have been forced to intervene and introduce better health care plans that are cost friendly and reliable to all their citizens. An example of such a plan is the ObamaCare plan. It is an affordable health care plan for all American citizens signed into law by President Obama on March 23rd, 2010 ("Health Reform"). The law takes into account comprehensive health reforms, under the Patients’ Bill of Rights, and seeks to improve health care provision by ensuring that consumers are protected against exploitation from insurance providers.
Key Issues
The Plan was scheduled to take a period of four years since its signing to be fully implemented. The first phase was the introduction of a Patient’s Bill of Rights meant to protect consumers against exploitation from insurance companies. The Act would ensure that in the following year, all Medicare holders got free preventive services and a discounted amount of 50 percent on drugs that are covered by the plans. In the next two years, all health care organizations and entities would work together towards ensuring that all Americans have access to better and affordable health care.
The Care Act is made up of the Affordable Health Care for Americans, the Patient Protection Act, the Health Care and Reconciliation Act, and the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. The Affordable Health Care Act legislation contains prohibitions for all insurance companies, tax regulations, and all rights and benefits that an insurance policy holder is entitled to.
The Patient Protection Act contains all the rights, protections and benefits that patients are entitled to. Additionally, contained in the Act are a list of rules and regulations that govern insurance companies and employers, and a pool of information with regards to state insurance rates.
The HealthCare and Education Reconciliation Act was signed into law in the same year as the Affordable HealthCare Act and the Patients Protection Act. In it were several reforms aimed at addressing the issue of health care amongst the low income earners and the high income earners. The Act incorporates Student loans reforms that target to alleviate the problem that American students face when accessing and repaying their loans. It allows students to stay covered by their parents’ plans until the age of 26 years ("Key Features of the Affordable Care Act").
Benefits
The HealthCare plan provides consumers with stronger protections and rights, more affordable insurance plans, stronger Medicare and improved accessibility to health care services. By reducing insurance premiums, the plan offers more people the ability to purchase insurance policies which in the long run reduces the number of deaths recorded annually due to poor and costly health care plans offered by private entities.
Equally, the Act provides Americans with a broad choice of plans from which they can choose from depending on their abilities and requirements. Furthermore, the plan ensures that the government keeps its budget under check by cutting down on expenditure, especially with regards to health care provision ("Health Care That Works for Americans").
Challenges
Despite the fact that the plan offers Americans affordable and reliable health care, more and more Americans are continuously growing worried on a possible increase in insurance premiums which would likely affect the ObamaCare plan. According to sources, premiums have always increased over the years but the latter is more likely to change in future due to the ObamaCare factor. For instance, it is reported that several insurance companies have issued premium request to their various states and even though the information is unavailable to the public, two states, namely; Oregon and Virginia, have already been reported to have made the information public ("Health Reform"). According to the head of America’s Health Insurance Plans, Mrs. Marilyn Tavenner, insurance companies are likely to raise their premiums in future to cover up for the losses made on ObamaCare plans.
The expiry of a $20 billion grant provided by the American government to the insurance companies to help cover costs of consumers with high medical expenses is likely to affect the ObamaCare plan. With an expiry of such a huge grant, the insurers are likely to hike premiums to meet those needs. Additionally, being a country of many states, prices are likely to vary from state to state and consequently from insurer to insurer. Hence, since the ObamaCare relies on unified rules and regulations, deviation by insurers to adjust their premiums to comply with their state or county, will negatively impact the running and dispensation of the plan.
Organizations are likely to face the problem of lack of freedom of choice. With the health care reforms in place, the government has more control over the people’s decisions whether or not to have insurance covers. This will create a situation where insurance companies will have no say in determining rates which will eventually lead to increased premiums.
Hence, health care reform is arguably bad for organizations for the following reasons;
Increased tax rates. In an effort to provide affordable health care to all its citizens, the American government finds itself running into deep debt. To reduce this deficit, the government may result into tax increments to gather more funds. Organizations will suffer the consequence of having to comply with these tax demands while at the same time struggling to offer cheap insurance policies to consumers.
No control over rates. Insurance companies have little or no say on the insurance rates and as such, are unable to control health premiums which are on the rise. To continue existing, these organizations will be forced to come up with outstanding policies that would guarantee them survival in the marketplace.
More spending for employers. The ObamaCare Act compels employers into covering majority of health expenses for their workers. This has made them to dig deeper into their pockets to meet these demands.
Organizational size
Under the Employer Shared Responsibility Provision Act, the health reforms affect organizations differently depending on size and industry. The latter is aimed at reducing health care costs for employees and ensuring that responsibilities are shared amongst employers, the states, and consumers. For instance, the employer mandate legislation required that companies with 100 or more full-time employees insured at least 95 percent of these workers by the end of 2016. Small sized companies with workers ranging from between 50 to 100 were required to begin insuring their workers in the year 2016. The same does not however apply to organizations with less than 50 employees. Hence, in a case where a company A employs fewer than 25 employees, the employer will not be compelled by the Affordable Care Act to insure its workers but rather will qualify for employer tax credits through the ObamaCare plan. This would enable the employer to provide some coverage to its full-time employees. For a company B with 1000 employees, the case is different as the law required that by the year 2016, at least 95 percent of its workers ought to have been covered. As such, 1000 employees would require more remittances from the company as compared to a company with less than 50 employees. Similarly, a company C which employs o...