The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - Essay Example

"The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" is a perfect example of a paper on the health system. 
Policy Problem

            Access to Medicare home health care for patients, particularly those with heavy care needs, is declining too much. In the US, there is the provision that nurses should offer home care to a number of patients with chronic ailment within the comfort of their home areas. The nurse who is offering hone based care to these patients is skilled in physical therapy, speech therapy, medical social services as well as home health aide services. Unfortunately, this provision has been steadily dropping following what is perceived to be an acute shortage of nurses in the field. The demand for both hospital and home-based care has significantly increased in the last few years that the number of available nurses cannot provide sufficient service for the demand. Home care in this regard has suffered a blow

Bill to be analyzed

            The bill in this context will be the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148). In this bill, there are ten sections that are discussed, in the ten sections out of which the most relevant one is the eighth section, which talks about: community Living Assistance and Supports Act (CLASS Act) (Amadeo 2013). The section enshrines how the patients with home care need should be supported and confirms that health care is for all irrespective of the position and geographical area. The government should invoke the provision of this bill to see into it then that Health care is universally provided as stipulated in the bill.

The Historical Context of the Issue

            There were many patients is the US that was developing chronic condition following what was attributed to lifestyle. In this regard, more patients developed those illnesses that looked more of permanent condition that temporary that could be cured. In this reference, many of the patients succumbed to those conditions that could be contained for life to continue, hence the enactment of these bills to provide home health care to all by involving the nurses in the rotational services. This plan has only been jeopardized by the inadequacy of the nurses, hence there is a need to employ more nurses to meet the ever-increasing demand for the services. In the Historical context, there has been the problem of patients visiting the hospital with condition that only requires lifetime management; inclusion of the home-based care will thus be of great help.

Quantitative Data

            Over time, there has been increased concern to practice Home health care with several nurses engaged in the nurses, even though the number is still not sufficient given the ratio of the patients who are in need of the care. Through the CLASS Act, there has also been a package set aside for the funding of the program at $50 daily, this is to ensure that the services do not meet funding problems.  In the recent past, it has been found that the nurses to patient ratio are 1: 15, this is an abnormal situation that cannot be tolerated if the program has to stay (Amadeo 2013).

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