Policy-making in the Federal System - Essay Example

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, was signed into law by President Obama in March 23, 2010 and is considered to be a major overhaul in the U.S healthcare since 1965. This paper explores how Obamacare works, the program’s pros and cons, if it is achieving its objectives and federalism issues raised by the program. Summary of the History of Obamacare The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was introduced as a bill in 2009 during 111th Congress session and passed on November 7, 2009.

John Dingell of Michigan, who was also the House Dean, sponsored the bill. President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law on March 31, 2010 (Tate, 2012). The ACA is aimed expanding insurance access to approximately 32 million uninsured Americans, emphasizing prevention and wellness, increasing consumer protections, improving quality and system performance, increasing the workforce in health care and curbing escalating cost of health care in the United States (Tate, 2012). The individual mandate, which is a major component of the ACA, is perceived by many to be unconstitutional.

The individual mandate of the ACA “requires millions of Americans to purchase health insurance from a private company for the rest of their lives or face annual penalties” (Sekulow, 2012, Para 10). . The Constitution of the United States protects the liberty of the citizens (Benedict, 2006). Historically, the ACA presents the very first incident where the U.S Congress mandated American citizens to buy a private company product. According to Sekulow (2012), under the Commerce Clause, the Congress has no jurisdiction to compel any individual to purchase any product from a private company.

Therefore, the mandated ACA has raised issues of “federalism” because the provisions of the Act are deemed unconstitutional. The Main Pros and Cons of Obamacare Despite the fact that the Obamacare has been under intense criticism, it comes with numerous benefits, particularly for low and middle income earners. However, it also has some cons, but these should not be the cause for its rejection as it was purely made out of good intent for Americans. Pros of Obamacare Increased accessibility to affordable health care insurance to millions of uninsured Americans More than half of uninsured individuals will obtain free or low cost health insurance via state Health Insurance Marketplace.

Expansion of CHIP to cover a maximum of 9 million children Expansion of Medicaid to 15.9 million females, males and children who are 138 percent below poverty line Small businesses stand the chance benefit from tax credits of up to 50 percent of health insurance costs on their employees Obamacare curbs high cost of health care Cons of Obamacare Making insurance available and affordable to millions of uninsured individuals involves increase in taxes, especially for high-income earners. Individual mandate demands that every American must obtain health coverage by January 2014.

The expansion of Medicaid is done using Federal