Obamacare Health Insurance - Essay Example

Causal Argument Obamacare Health Insurance Plan The Obama health care which is also referred to as the Affordable Care Acts are restructurings in the health insurance industry and the whole American health care system. The act had been enacted into law and has over a thousand pages of regulations. It offers the American citizens the rights and protections of healthcare and expanded right of entry to inexpensive high quality Medicare and health care to millions American citizens who are uninsured (Giaimo 599-602). The Obama health care act was signed into law on March 23, 2010 and was endorsed by a supreme court presiding on June 28, 2012 that upheld it. In the course of the ruling, the regulation was improved to permit States to opt-out of growing admission to Medicaid (Troy 30-32). The law necessitated all American citizens to have a health insurance plan by 2014 with an option of paying a month fee for every month short of minimum necessary coverage. The health plan was shared responsibility, which was unofficial to individual’s mandate. Supreme Court administrated it to be a tax plan but rather not a mandate by ruling June 28, 2012 (Troy 30-33). The healthcare law does not alter the approach to which insurance is obtained, since people can still purchase private insurance, acquire employer-established insurance, and acquire healthcare insurance plan via government programs like Medicaid or Medicare. However, the Obama Care only adds new ways of purchasing the insurance cover and plans. According to the law, insurance can only be purchased through state health insurance marketplaces where the insured obtain cost assistance and acquire apples-to-apples evaluations of plans (Hollander 1). According to the law, each insurance cover categories have their open enrollment times, consequently making certain categories of insurance plan to be purchased only during specific period of the year (Hollander 1). The Health Care Act is a problem to some quotas of the Americans who view it as expensive while others view is at cheaper. It necessitates all American citizens to buy a private health care insurance plan, get immunity or remit a tax fine on their end year taxes. According to the law, citizens who are unable to afford health insurance cost either qualify for Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP or acquire support in the formula of tax credits or support with the up-front costs via their State’s Health Insurance Exchange Marketplace (Wear 17-20). Those who cannot afford even after assistance especially when the insurance cost is more than 8 percent of their families income are be excused from the individual mandate (Hollander 1). There are issues that make the Obamacare to be a problem. First, the Medicaid would expanded through the use of Federal and State funding, yet not all States have to expand Medicaid, thus making the 5.7 million of our nation’s poorest to have no coverage options (Wear 17-20). For the low-income Americans earners, some states may opt out of healthcare cover (Troy 31-32). Although there would be grant federal funding for the first year and reduced grant funding for the second year, it would leave out several citizens without coverage in the third year. This use of Medicaid expansion is away for making money for the nation to cater for the credit crisis. Since the establishment of the law, Insurance companies have since increased their premiums rates because insurer has had to provide covered services. Obama health care plan only emphasizes more in ensuring that people are covered than it does on addressing the cost of the car. The high cost of medical care and high debt necessitated the Obamacare (Hollander 1). There are worrying Statistics on the program. For the last four years since the inception of the Obamacare, the national health care expenditures spent on health services and supplies has been growing at very high rates than the rate of growth of the American economy (Hollander 1). Thus, the impact has been felt in other sectors that have been derived the funds diverted in health care sector. There has been increased inflation especially on medical supplies and other medical care products since the inception of the Obamacare. The Obamacare has facilitated the loss of doctors by Americans. Although the president assured them that despite what they have heard, if they liked their doctor or health care plan, they could keep them. That promise, however, has not been essentially true, according to the findings of the Department of Human Health and Services, which suggested that the health care plan that an individual chooses in the Marketplace, they may be able to keep their current doctors (Wear 17-20). The United States government clarifies that, most health care insurance covers available in the Marketplace often have networks of doctors, specialist, hospitals, pharmacies, and other health care facilities. The networks comprise health care providers that the cover agrees with in order to take care of the cover’s members. Care is always covered only when an individual get them from network provider according to the type of policy they purchase. With the use of the Obamacare, Americans could lose their healthcare plans. The president assured the citizens that they could keep their health care plans. However, customers are currently discovering their health care insurance plans that do not eligible as according to government approval under the plan (Rothman 27-30). The uncertainties that are being encountered in the implementation of the health care plan puts the health care insurance plan at risk since most Americans can lose their cover. The Obamacare could lead to worsening health care. According to “The New York Times”, as many as 75 % of health care cover plans are likely to be affected by the Cadillac tax (Abelson 1). Consumers should expect their health care plans to be more expensive coupled with little benefits. Patients would consequently opt to visit clinics place of doctors for medicaments and blood-pressure checkups programs instead of doctors, to cope with such long-lasting illnesses as diabetes. Implementation of the Obamacare has led to the higher premiums charged by insurance companies. Although the president and his policy makers appealed that the Obamacare health care program would protect the average family when it comes to premium payment, American Journal of Bioethics study has exposed that, essentially, the premiums paid for health insurance since the inception of the Obama health care program has doubled and tripped especially for healthy people adult (Wear 17-20). The implementation of the healthcare plan has also led to increase in taxes. The research by American journal of Bioethics found that, there have been new and increased taxes since the establishment of Obamacare. The new pay comprise of taxes on investment income, the individual and employer mandates Medicare payroll, insurance plans, medical bills, medical device manufacturers, insurance companies, innovator drug companies, elastic spending accounts for special-needs children, parts of Medicare D, and charitable hospitals (Wear 17-20). Implementation of the Obamacare health plan has led to the budget deficit increase. Some research reports that the Obamacare would increase the enduring deficit by trillions (Abelson 1). This would trigger hiring freezing of workers consequently leading to joblessness especially in small business. The Obamacare health plan would slash working hours. A survey has revealed that more than half of small businesses influenced by the Obamacare plan would either substitute their current permanent workers with freelancers or slash their workers’ hours due to the of the requirements of the law. The health plan would also kill jobs (Wear 17-20).The same survey also revealed that most of small businesses would plan to lay staff in orders to evade paying fines for not providing health insurance plans for the employees (Wear 17-20). The health insurance plan would also kill new jobs. According to statistical findings by the journal of Bioethics, a third of employers often mention the insecurity of the Obamacare’s costs and principles as the major impediment to contracting more workers (Wear 17-20). New taxes imposed by the health care plan often kill thousands of jobs, thus leading to more layoffs. The employer responsibility according to the plan, once executed, would deterrent for organizations to employ more workers on permanent basis if the organization cannot afford to pay health insurance. The jobs already created are also killed since layoffs are imminent. For example, the layoffs at the Pennsylvania community college and cities in Ohio, the south-side Chicago hospital, Wisconsin health care company, and Pennsylvania are credited to Obamacare (Wear 17-20). It has also led to business waivers. The Obamacare health plan recognized supplying organizations with supplementary waivers in the 2012. After this the department of health stopped updating the amount of renunciations due to monthly ridicule from the GOP, but instead stopped tolerating applications for one-year renunciations and approved or disapproved the waivers through the end of the year (Wear 17-20). The implementation of the Obamacare health plan has led to increased Medicare cost. An analysis by the journal of Bioethics revealed that Obamacare health insurance plan would force seniors to agonize greater out-of-pocket expenditures for the next five years or so (Wear 17-20). Payments will be condensed to skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, and some home health-care organizations. The implementation of the health care insurance plan has facilitated the failure of insurance cooperatives. The department of health has found that most of the health care cooperatives formed under Obamacare act are at risk of bankruptcy even before they provide health insurance covers. This has consequently led to fewer insurance companies. Organizations providing health insurance plans have in the recent past dropped in number especially after the inception of the Obama care (Wear 17-20). The existing insurance companies also offers fewer insurance choices. Due to implementation of the Obamacare, doctors expect worsening care. Several doctors are afraid that they may not be able to carry on private practice due to low compensation rates from Medicaid and Medicare programs (Troy 31). Thus, would end up employed in corporation health facilities where the profits are shared with shareholders. Hence, fear that they would be penalized in such system for spending much time attending to patients or providing too much treatment. Works Cited Abelson, Reed. “High-End Health Plans Scale Back to Avoid ‘Cadillac Tax.” Nytimes.com. Web. 18 November 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/business/cadillac-tax-health-insurance.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>. Giaimo S. Behind the Scenes of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: The Making of a Health Care Co-op. Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law [serial online]. June 2013; 38(3):599-610. Available from Academic Search Premier, Ipswich, MA. Web 17 November 2014. . Hollander C. Obamacare Wont Transform America--Yet. National Journal [serial online]. 2013.Web 17 November 2014. < http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/obamacare-won-t-transform-america-yet-20130926>. Rothman N. A Brief History of the ObamaCare Disaster: How it went wrong, and why. Commentary [serial online]. 2014 ;( 1):26. Web 17 November 2014. < http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6972b0d8-0e5e-4910-96a7-a96ea73977e8%40sessionmgr4004&vid=0&hid=4111>. Troy T. The ObamaCare Debacle Deepens: how John Roberts made a disastrous law even worse. Commentary [serial online]. 2012 ;( 2):30. Web. November 17, 2014. < http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=004a2713-3de3-4b54-be2f-60352658e044%40sessionmgr4005&vid=0&hid=4111>. Wear, Stephen. "Sense and Nonsense in The Conservative Critique Of Obamacare." American Journal of Bioethics 11.12 (2011): 17-20. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 18 Nov. 2014. . Read More