Public Policy: Affordable Health Care Act also known as Obamacare - Essay Example

This paper examines the legislation process that was followed and the likely impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The U.S. healthcare system can best be described as a combination of private insurance and public financing of Medicare and Medicaid. Healthcare services are mostly provided by independent entities and privately operated health care units. The government’s involvement in the healthcare provision can be traced to 1965, when President John’s enacted a bill that led to the creation of Medicare and Medicaid.

Under this venture, low-income Americans could access medical insurance, from the providers who were reimbursed on a “cost plus 2% basis” (Werhane & Tieman, 2011). However, overtime, Medicare and Medicaid programs have increased government spending in the provision of care to the Americans. As Trotter (2011) points out, healthcare spending accounts for 18% of the total GDP and without the necessary reform, the spending was estimated to increase to 20% of the entire federal budget by 2020. The U.S.

health sector has also failed to provide adequate coverage to all the Americans. The available statistics indicate that one in every five Americans is not insured. The uninsured Americans are unable to access quality healthcare, hence the need to initiate a program that would widen the current coverage. Lack of adequate coverage, also affects the insured Americans as they are required to pay higher premium rates. The need to reform the U.S. health sector was also necessitated by the high mortality rates.

According to Trotter (2011) majority of deaths in the U.S. are caused by preventable deaths such as obesity, heart diseases and cancer. Unfortunately, the current health care system does not allocate enough funds towards preventive care. As Lachman (2009) suggests the current health care