What is the Affordable Care Act?
The Affordable Care Act is the new health care reform law in
America. The affordable care act attempts to reform the healthcare system by
providing more Americans with
affordable quality health insurance and by curbing the growth in healthcare
spending in the U.S. Some things the Affordable Care Act addresses is: Quality,
affordable health care for all Americans, the role of public programs,
improving the quality and efficiency of health care, preventing chronic diseases, improving public health, and improving access to innovative medical
therapies.
This law will make insurance more affordable by providing
the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history, reducing premium
and out-of-pocket costs for tens of millions of families and small business
owners. This will help over 32 million Americans afford halth care who do not
get it today. Under this plan 95% of Americans will be insured. It will end
discrimination against with pre-existing conditions and puts our budget and
economy on a more stable path.
Why should you care about the Affordable Care Act? Because not only could you one day find yourself insured by this act but also because this plan hopes to level the playing field by forcing private health insurance companies lower their costs to help them compete with the Affordable Care Act.
Jamie's View
I think that the Affordable care act is unfair to our country and our citizens because it gives health insurance to people who don't have jobs and don't work and makes taxes for families like mine to go up. I think that my family, along with many other middle class citizens, are hard workers and work extremely hard to get our health insurance and not cheat the system. I think that individuals who are lazy and are capable of working and don't should not benefit from something that working class citizens do. However, at the same time, I think that this health care act is good for the individuals who cannot work because of health reasons but need health insurance. This act crosses a fine line, for me, between good and bad. I could argue either way but think that it is more on the negative side for society.
Lexi's View
Trying to navigate your way around the Affordable Healthcare Act is daunting. There are so many articles out there that are for and against the healthcare act, it is hard to keep up, and even harder to actually learn about the bill. After reading the actual Affordable Healthcare Act and a helpful article that laid out the advantages and disadvantages I am for affordable healthcare. For so long so many people have gone without health insurance because the private companies are too expensive. A few years ago Massachusetts created affordable healthcare for those who could not afford private insurance and required everyone in the state to be insured. While it was a relief to some, it is still fairly impossible to be accepted into the health plan. The Affordable Healthcare Act accepts all parties and creates a payment plan based on your income. Many people are worried about the disadvantages of affordable healthcare, one worry being that although everyone will now be insured, that prices will increase due to unknown issues someone might realize they have when they go to their first preventative doctors visit after not seeing a doctor for several years. Although this could happen, it would not be an increase that would continue to grow. Once everyone becomes insured and begins to have routine checkups, need to expensive hospital visits will decrease because people will see a doctor sooner, and many issues can be resolved before they become so bad someone might be hospitalized. The price of private health insurance has consistently gone up over the past several years because of this very reason. The Affordable Healthcare Act will bring these prices down.
