The Affordable Care Act - Case Study Example

The Affordable Care Act Affordable Care Act is a law that was introduced in order to reform earlier health system. The act has more provisions in comparison to the previous health care acts. It focuses on increasing benefits and lowering costs for healthcare consumers. The law defines the funding of the public healthcare systems. It also supports innovation in the healthcare system in order to improve the healthcare quality and helps the citizens of the country to spend sustainably on the medical services by expanding the Medicaid eligibility. The introduction of the act affected the human service sector. History of the Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act was introduced in the year 2010 though it became effective in 2014. The Act was implemented when Obama became the president because it was one of his manifestos. There have been significant reforms on the Act since then. The Act holds that all citizens in the country should have healthcare security. It was introduced in order to help people with lower incomes and unemployed individuals in the country because healthcare cost is very high in the country. Consequently, many people with low incomes cannot afford medical insurance. The aim of introducing the Act was to provide coverage to about 30 million individuals with no cover. It mostly targets the elderly who have retired and lack the capacity to pay their medical bills. It is important to note that country has a high number of elderly compared to people from other age groups. People above the age of 60 usually have many medical problems. Very few elderly people went for regular medical checkup because they could not afford to pay for their bills before the Act was introduced. This was a big problem because they used to go to the hospital when their health conditions became critical leading to congestion in emergency rooms. In addition, the Act was introduced in order to increase the productivity of citizens in organizations. Since most people in the country could not afford to pay for the medical covers, many employees avoided going for regular medical checkups. They also went to hospitals when they were seriously ill. As a result, many workers spent more days in hospitals leading to lower productivity in many organizations because of absenteeism. It also negatively affected the financial system of the entire country (Tate 16). The Affordable Care Act (ACA) as part of Human service field Increased Demand for Human Service The Affordable Care Act also affects the human service field in various ways. The Act intends to protect the health of the citizens. After the implementation of the act, many people in the country can afford health care leading to increased demand for human services. The country is currently facing a shortage of healthcare workers because of the high demand for health care services. This problem is expected to rise in the future because of the increase in the number of elderly in the country. The Healthcare and Human Service (HHS) is addressing this problem in various ways. For instance, it is offering scholarships and loans in order to increase the number of health care givers in those parts of the country with high health care demand. HHS is also using other strategies such as retaining healthcare workers. The Affordable Care Act has increased the skills and diversity of healthcare workers through the HHS. HHS is working with the government in order to have a competent health workforce. The process has been useful in ensuring high quality and timely healthcare services (Dorn, Issacs, Minton, et al 2). Policy makers and service providers are also working together to ensure the effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act. Young students participate in healthcare practices in order to close the gap between healthcare infrastructure and workforce. In addition, the HHS focuses on increasing the wages of the health service providers in order to attract more workers. This implies that the affordable care act has played a big part in motivating HHS to strengthen its human capital. HHS has also created a culture of wellness in its workforce by introducing a wellness programs that aims at reducing healthcare risks and increasing the performance of workers. The program ensures that the healthcare service providers become fully accountable and have necessary tool in order to improve health care results (Colby, Catherine & Karen 64). Addressing Human Service Challenges The Affordable Care Act has contributed to the introduction of new activities and modification of existing ones in order to address the current work forces challenges. The acts provisions influence the activities of various agencies and departments. For instance, the act led to the introduction of the autonomous Health Care Workforce Commission (HCWC). The agency helps in identifying all the issues affecting workforce and addressing them effectively. The act also authorized the development of projects that help in solving the problems affecting the health workers. The act has also increase the ability of the HHS to assess shortages of healthcare workforces in small communities. In addition, the act gave the human service department power to implement strategies that solve the nation’s workforce needs. It also gave human service the power to enhance work force diversity in order to address the cultural and linguistic issues in the health care system (Colby, Catherine & Karen 64). Increasing the Effectiveness of Public Health Services The act has also helped in solving the problems related to the shortage of public health workers. Public health workers include research experts, disaster preparedness, and health promotion workers. It is expected that by the year 2020 the country will experience shortage of the public health workers by 250,000. According to HHS, the public health workers are not very flexible because of their rigid training requirements. As a result, the Act gave HHS authority to standardize the curriculum and objective of the public health course. Workforce problems in public health sectors threaten the health of citizens in the country. The country requires a greater public health capacity because of the many disease outbreaks. The many disease outbreaks are caused by the high rate of immigration in the country. Through the act, the government has introduced various programs in order to expand the existing public health programs. The public health services are also affected by surveillance and laboratory services. This is because the services help the public health workers to easily detect and monitor emergency threats. They also need the services in order to assess the effectiveness of their strategies. The Affordable Care Act enables the HHS to reinforce the surveillance systems throughout the country in order to ensure that public health workers deliver quality services. In addition, HHS is introducing the use of information technology solutions in order to ensure security and accuracy of information. The department is also expanding the capacity of laboratories in order promote evidence based practices. Increasing the accessibility and sharing of data is also strategy set to support epidemiology programs in the country (Dorn, Issacs, Minton, et al 2). ACA Has Strengthened the Human Service Work Forces The human service employees usually help the most susceptible individuals in the country. The employees usually work in various programs such as early childhood, domestic violence prevention, and youth development programs. The human service employees usually help in addressing behavioral issues facing the community in order to promote economic and social independence of youths and other vulnerable groups in the society. The human service workforce faces many challenges that hinder them from achieving their goals. The challenges include high turnover rates of employees and poor compensation plans. The aging of the population has also resulted into workforce shortage in the human service sector. In addition, the workforce is less diversified. As a result, workers usually face various challenges such as racial and ethnic issues. The act has enabled the HHS to offer training to the human service workers in order to improve the quality of services they offer. HHS also ensured collaboration between the human service workers and other agencies. In addition, the act has authorized the HHS to improve the recruitment and promotion strategies in order reduce the turnover rates of the nation’s human service employees. The strategies will also help in attracting more qualified and competent human service workers in order to improve the quality of services. In addition, HHS has introduced various strategies in order to enhance cultural diversity in the workforce (Bihari 1). Affordable Care Act and Public policies reform With the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, there have been many reforms in the public policies. The act led to the reformation of patient rights and health. With the introduction of the Act, new set of rules were introduced in the patient rights policy. The reform became effective in the year 2010. The aim of the reformation was to eliminate barriers between patient and their healthcare providers. One of the public policy that was reformed entails insurance policies. The reform has helped in preventing the bad practices of insurance companies in the country by protecting the consumers. The Act authorizes the HHS to set standards for insurance plans. The Act led to the introduction of new standards in insurance policy. The new standards include the prohibition of activities like insurance price discrimination. Because of this reformation, every citizen pays the same prices for their insurance cover regardless of their racial or ethnic backgrounds. Another reformation of the policy includes allowing children to be under their parents’ insurance plans. After this reformation, citizens are covered by their parents’ insurance plans until they reach of 26 year. The new rule holds that insurance firms should not introduce any conditions that lead to the exclusion of children from insurance plans. Before the implementation of the new rule, some insurance companies stopped providing insurance covers to children who developed medical conditions that were very expensive to cure (Colby, Catherine, & Karen 64). The act also prohibits the dropping of insurance holders whenever they are sick. In the past insurance firms could cancel one’s insurance plan if he made unintentional mistakes on the insurance documents. However, insurance firms are prohibited from cancelling one’s plan after the implementation of the new rule. They can only cancel the plan if a person committed crime on the insurance documents. The new insurance policy also led to the expansion of the Medicaid eligibility. In the current society, all individuals earning up to 133 percent of the poverty level are eligible to Medicaid. The act also requires that organizations offer insurance covers for their insurance eligible workers. After the implementation of the act, organizations are usually penalized if they fail to provide covers for their workers. In addition, it is easy for people to get medical help from providers of their choice after the implementation of the act. Some insurance firms restricted consumers to certain providers. The act prohibits the restrictions set by the insurance firms (John 27). The act also reformed the Prevention and Public Health Fund policies. The reformation led to the prioritization of prevention of diseases in the healthcare system. It resulted into the substitution of the sick-care system policy with the with the prevention system. In order to implement this change, the act authorizes Health and Human Service to give financials support to the healthcare sectors such as the nation’s human service and public health sectors. For instance, in the year 2010, the department allocated about 15 billion dollars in the prevention programs. The funds not only support the prevention activities, but they also help in strengthening the primary care service providers. The aim of this reformation was to ensure that citizens get medical attention early enough in order to prevent costly care. For effective implementation of the reformation, the government has created a Council that deals with prevention activities. The council together with other government leaders is expected to develop health-care policies that target different groups of citizens (Dorn, Issacs, Minton, et al 2). Conclusion The Affordable Care Act was introduced in the year 2010 due to various reasons. One of the reasons was the increase in productivity in the country by reducing absenteeism in organizations. Due to the high cost of healthcare, many employees spend more days in hospitals because they cannot afford to go for regular checkups. This lowered their performances in their work places. With the new Act, employees can afford to pay for the medical insurance. The aim of the act was also to cater for the elderly and persons with low incomes in the society. Emergency rooms were congested because people only went to hospitals whenever they had serious medical conditions before the implementation of the act. However, the act led to the expansion of the Medicaid eligibility. The introduction of the Act influenced human services. For instance, it increased demand for medical services that in turn led to shortage of the human service workers. In order to address this issue, the act authorizes HHS to allocate funds for training human service workers in order to increase their number. Works Cited Bihari, Michael. Patients Rights- Health reform and patients rights. 2013. 27 Feb 2014. Colby, Ira C, Catherine N. Dulmus, and Karen M. Sowers. Connecting Social Welfare Policy to Fields of Practice. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley, 2013. Internet resource. Dorn, Stan, Isaacs, Julia, Minton, Sarah et al. Overlapping eligibility and enrollment: Human services and Health programs under the affordable care act. Urban Institute. 2013. Web. 27 Feb 2014 HHS. Strengthen the nation’s health and human service infrastructure and work force. 2013. 27 Feb 2014. McDonough, John E. Inside National Health Reform. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Print. Tate, Nick J. Obamacare Survival Guide. West Palm Beach, FL: Humanix Books, 2012. Print. Read More