Provisions of the Affordable Care Act - Essay Example

Introduction Most of the developing and developed economies have laws that govern the protection of human rights and freedom. They are laid out in the constitutions of these economies which also streamline policies, requirement, roles and endeavors of both the public and private institutions into achieving and implementing the constitution provisions. Majority of these constitutions have put in place healthcare as a basic right of every citizen in terms of diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and prevention of basic environmental, waterborne, genetically acquired ailments and other contracted diseases in the daily activities of the citizens. Depending on the economic status, technological advancement and civilization levels of a given economy, healthcare will vary in terms of provision, delivery, accessibility, reliability and the general public awareness of their health requirement optimality. Healthcare structure will heavily rely on the policies put in place in line with the social and economic status of the citizens. For instance health policies should enhance efficient transfer of medical care and assistance within the different levels of a homogenous medical platform. This is to say, primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary; community and homecare platforms of the healthcare have different functions which include curative, preventive, immunization and emergencies response, need a planned structure for a success. This should reflect a smooth interaction and assistance of different healthcare professionals; public health practitioners, community health workers, doctors, nurses, allied workers and those practicing medicine in the provision of health care to the economy (Gronvall, p12). The Affordable Care for America Act bill of the United States, was passed in November, 2009.The bill was meant to improve the health standards of the United States citizen through provision of advanced health incentives to harmoniously favor all the citizens. It was meant to incorporate new measures to inclusively involve each and every stakeholder in the provision of advanced, well mitigated, planned and output/ result oriented healthcare system unlike the one that existed. Despite its aims and target, the bill was faced with a lot of deficits or inadequacies to satisfy the wellbeing of the American people (Alex, 12). First, the cost of financing the scheme was estimated to a tune of $105.2 billion a year. This will translate to approximately $ 8.77 billion a month. This is huge cost to be financed by the citizens considering the taxes they were paying at the moment. Considering that healthcare was not the only priority of the American people in that there was a need to curb unemployment rates and the need to cut the government spending in order to minimize the fiscal debt, financing such a project was in contradiction with the economic standards. Implementing such an expensive bill would mean an extra cost to the tax payers to finance the scheme who are already in financial burden extremes thus violating its intention of improving the lifestyle of the American people. Failure to meet the financial obligations by the taxpayers for the project would also translate to diversion of the consolidated funds meant for other economic and social amenities towards the health scheme creating imbalance in the economic growth. Secondly, the scheme had some unrealistic assumption in terms of the economic status of the citizens in that its provisions for the medical insurance sector treated all the citizens to be in the same income bracket which is not in tandem with the American people. Their insurance subsidies provision of $88000 for a family of four failed to consider families with less members and come up with the subsidization formulae which would take in to details the particular average home of a given household/family to cater for disparities and individuals contribution to the insurance scheme in line with his financial ability. This will contradict the provisions of the constitution of nondiscrimination on the economic status of an individual. The proposed expansion of medical care to $ 33000 per the household of four people was also unrealistic in that the expansion would call tightening of the fiscal and monetary obligations. To solve this problem they could have come up with a strategy of taxation to cover each and every taxpayer in line with his economic welfare expansion of the medical care could be adjusted in small amount of $15000 and below. To meet this financial obligation, the act proposed new and increased taxes targeting the families with incomes greater than $1 million. Considering that this is a national scheme, additional taxes to these families would seem like discrimination violating their rights. In addition, a 2.5 percent exercise tax on medical devices would mean a transfer of the same cost to the patients who visited private health centers. This would contradict with the healthcare’s intention of providing cheap, reliable and affordable healthcare in spite of stimulating the government public spending and 5.4 percent surtax on the individuals with an adjusted income levels exceeding $500000 would mean an imbalance in the contribution to the national kitty. These would in the long run lead to unbalanced contributions to the scheme meant for every citizen. To curb this revision of the exercise and surtax to a tune of individual and business returns and on the increase of new tax, they should consider deliberations to tax high cost private insurance plans. Affordable care did not cover the abortion in clauses in the public health centers. The act ruled out the benefits and subsidies to the citizen who would opt for an abortion due factors that are enshrined in the constitution thus contradicting the law provisions. It also failed to incorporate interests of private medical cover providers’ business freedoms in that removal of the anti-trust exemptions did not favor competition and growth of new service providers. Also incorporation of tax equity for domestic partners reduced the liquidation and funding/outsourcing which is against growth interests of the insurance providers. Furthermore raising the employer mandate of providing and /or remitting a 8 percent surtax on the workers wage did not rhyme well with the business autonomy needs and the business expansion needs (Jason, p23-44). The above mentioned factor would conflict the interests of the citizens for abortion, the insurance provider’s business freedom of exercising the anti-trust business practices which are justified by the insured’s income levels, preferred insurance policy plan and assured’s medical history, and minimum or no growth of the insurance and the business fraternity. Prohibition of price discrimination by the insurance firms in terms of age and gender is a big blow to the insurance providers as these are justified by the different risks involved with different ages and gender. To curb this act ought to have come up with mechanisms to allow free trade and transfer of risks involved in the business fraternity without violation of human rights and freedoms. Conclusion Provisions of the affordable care act are paramount and appealing from the external view but its implementation would leave bugs in the societal satisfaction, push the citizens to a financial burden and most likely stall other economic institutions functionality. In fact its projected number of uninsured individuals within the ten year span ought to be reduced to around five million persons. The act should be amended to meet financial status of the people and expectations by the people. Works Cited Leary, Alex. “Health care reform: Where the House, Senate agree and disagree". St. Petersburg Times: 2010. Print. Simmons, Jason. Primary care needs: New innovations to meet growing need. A journal of . Health Leaders Media, May 27, 2009. Edward, Gronvall. "Challenges and Opportunities for Collaborative technologies for homecare work: Aarhus: Denmark: 2011. Print. Read More