Recently President Obama signed a new law that governs health care in the United States. Most Americans call it Obamacare. Obama spoke in favor of the popular name of the new law stating, “I do care.” The official name of the new bill is the Affordable Care Act. The act itself is over a thousand pages long it governs many aspects of health care. Its main purpose is to provide affordable health care to all Americans. Before the law it was common for people to be denied coverage and treatment because of preexisting conditions. Other pieces of information were involved in the pricing of the insurance including gender.
Basically before Obamacare insurance companies would deny people coverage or charge them more money for insurance based on how much health treatment that person would need in the future. For example a person that contracts a major disease, like cancer, at a young age would be forced to pay more money for health care for their entire lives. Obamacare changes that. As of 2013 there were about 44 million Americans that couldn’t afford health insurance. One of the major changes brought about by Obamacare is the expanding of Medicare and Medicaid. Those changes will make it easier for those 44 million people to afford health insurance. Americans will be required to have health insurance by January 1st, 2014 or pay a fee on their upcoming taxes. Many Americans will be eligible for subsidized health insurance.
Many people debated about if the changes brought about by Obamacare would be positive for the country. As of last week over 2 million people had signed up for Obamacare, and several of them had already gone to doctor’s visits using their new insurance. Unfortunately there have been cases across the country of people being unable to receive treatment because their insurance couldn’t be confirmed. The problem stems from technical difficulties on the government’s healthcare.gov website. Many Republicans in congress that voted against the act are jumping on these stories. They have started to create a narrative that the Obamacare is not working. This is expected to intensify leading up to the congressional elections this November. As many as 7 million Americans, including those that will pay reduced costs, are expected to sign up for Obamacare before the March 31st deadline.
Hospitals expect Obamacare to bring them more paying patients and reduce the amount of uncompensated care they provide, but have not seen a surge yet. “We continue to expect an uptick in volume, but we don’t think it’s anything beyond what most hospitals are prepared to handle,” said Jeff Goldman, vice president of coverage policy for the American Hospital Association. Obama care has altered the entire health care industry in the United States. It is almost out of the beginning stages of its existence as law. It will remain a prominent talking point in American politics for the next few months.
