The goal of the Affordable Care Act was to whittle down the number of uninsured Americans and bring order to the Wild West of the individual insurance market. According to a new analysis by the Urban Institute think tank, if the law is repealed like Republican leaders want, both of those things would be undone. In fact, the uninsured rate would likely be even worse than it was before the law was passed.
[mc4wp_form id=”6042″]
If Obamacare is repealed, which Republican lawmakers say is their plan, health care in America would look a lot like it did a decade ago, with policies that are expensive and hard to come by unless they’re obtained through an employer. Nearly 30 million people would quickly become uninsured, the report authors find—the majority of them from the working class.
Photo | PSAs Released by Ad Council and AARP
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare, is a United States federal statute enacted by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. Together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act amendment, it represents the most significant regulatory overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. Under the act, hospitals and primary physicians would transform their practices financially, technologically, and clinically to drive better health outcomes, lower costs, and improve their methods of distribution and accessibility.
The Affordable Care Act was intended to increase health insurance quality and affordability, lower the uninsured rate by expanding insurance coverage and reduce the costs of healthcare. It introduced mechanisms including mandates, subsidies and insurance exchanges. The law requires insurers to accept all applicants, cover a specific list of conditions and charge the same rates regardless of pre-existing conditions or sex. In 2011, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the ACA would lower future deficits and Medicare spending.
The law and its implementation faced challenges in Congress and federal courts, and from some state governments, conservative advocacy groups, labor unions, and small business organizations. The United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the ACA’s individual mandate as an exercise of Congress’s taxing power, found that states cannot be forced to participate in the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, and found that the law’s subsidies to help individuals pay for health insurance are available in all states, not just in those that have set up state exchanges. (Wikipedia)
You must be logged in to post a comment.