Impacts of the Affordable Care Act on the Rural Healthcare Insurance - Essay Example

Although the coverage changes will largely take effect after 2014, the changes made so far are likely to benefit rural people by improving their coverage rates. Children in the family plans would be qualifying for coverage up to 26 years of age as dependents. The implementation of changes would develop high-risk pools which would be particularly meant for those whose health conditions have existed for quite a while in the past. Owners of petty businesses as well as their workers would benefit from the subsidies and the addition of tax credits. People in rural frontier and nonadjacent areas conventionally have very low rates of health care insurance as compared to those in the urban regions. Therefore, the effects of the provisions of the ACA will generally be much more profound in rural areas as compared to urban areas. Rural people happily accept to work for little compensation. The volume of business does not matter much to them. It is important to note that the effect of ACA in rural regions will be the aggregate of appreciable advancements in coverage, which would be steadied by the imposed limitations on payments to the health care providers in rural areas, particularly through such programs as the Medicare program.

In the years to come, specifically, after 2014, when the coverage changes will be heavily implemented, coverage expansions made through the excessive use of tax credits and subsidies as well as through the exchanges of health insurance and Medicaid would have a more or less, uneven and inconsistent yet great positive impacts on people in the rural regions in comparison to those living in the urban regions. “Of the 8.6 million adults ages 50 to 64 who were uninsured in 2009, up to 6.8 million may gain subsidized insurance through Medicaid and the exchanges and 1.4 million with higher incomes will have access to comprehensive health plans with new consumer protections” (Collins, Doty, and Garber). The higher success rate in rural areas as compared to urban areas can specifically be attributed to the fact that people in rural areas have conventionally had lower incomes and greater uninsured rates.

To obtain maximum benefits, the access of the rural community to information must be made easy. A potential way to achieve this is by offering web-based protocols to the residents of rural regions so that they may compare and select the health plans that best suit their individualistic and collective needs. “The ultimate impact of expanded affordability will be realized only if individuals and small employers otherwise without health insurance enroll in health plans” (Coburn et al. 2).