The Affordable Care Act - Essay Example

Healthcare: The Affordable Care Act Margot Sanger-Katz’ article “Is the Affordable Care Act Working?” is an informative article that explores the applicability and success of the widely discussed healthcare Act in the contemporary society. The article explores the effect of the Affordable Care Act on uninsured people, affordability of insurance, impact on health outcomes and healthcare industry at large, online exchanges, expansion of Medicaid, and healthcare spending. In general, the standout topic is insurance for young people and uninsured Americans.

I learnt a lot from the article concerning the healthcare crisis in the country. The Affordable Care Act is beneficial because it has made substantial progress in reducing the number of Americans with no health insurance. Low-income residents have immensely benefited because most of them are now able to access and afford insurance. Those who gained insurance through the law have seen a reduction in disastrously high medical bills that hospitals forced them to pay in previous instances. Whether the Act has made the American population healthier is still uncertain.

Similarly, there is no significant decrease in chronic illness patients, neither is there an increase of checkups (Sanger-Katz 1). It was also intriguing to learn that young Americans remain on their parents’ insurance plans until they turn twenty-six years of age. This is a positive step of the act, because traditionally, most citizens between nineteen to thirty years of age do not have insurance. In consequence, this reduced the number of uninsured Americans. Sanger-Katz affirms that most young Americans, especially college graduates, now access customary primary care doctor before the institution of the law, because they do not have to go without medical care because of costs.

Even so, there was minimal change in the rest of the population in terms of access to primary care, and this requires drastic action. Work Cited Sanger-Katz, Margot. Is the Affordable Care Act Working? The New York Times, 2014.