The Need for a Reform of the American Health Care Policy

Many leaders of our great nation have tried to establish a plan that could take care of Americans, especially when it comes to the rising prices of health care and insurance premiums. “Almost one of every six Americans have no health insurance, health care spending is escalating rapidly, administrative costs are excessive, and medical errors are rampant” (Fuchs Emmanuel). However, many Americans have disagreed over the nature of the Affordable Care Act and whether it will help or harm Americans, creating a disturbance in the wave of many policies. There is one thing that is certain; many people are not covered by insurance which seems to be extremely high for this day and age.

To further understand this epidemic, the past must be taken into consideration in regards to what the present and future has to hold. A large number of Americans have just noticed this issue, however “Barack Obama’s health care law follows a century of debate over what role the government should play in helping people in the United States afford medical care” (Fox News). In 1929, the teachers in Dallas were required to pay two quarters a month to cover up to three weeks in hospital care per year; unfortunately this plan did not last long. President Franklin D. Roosevelt spent seven of his twelve years in office (1935-1942) trying to create a national health insurance program. Nevertheless, he decided to push for Social Security instead and established minimum wage laws and price controls. Despite these changes, businesses were not able to attract employees during World War II, even with higher wages, so they also added other incentives such as health insurance. President Kennedy’s major campaign issue was health care, but he was unable to get a plan for the elderly through congress. Medicare (for the elderly) and Medicaid (for the poor) were created by “President Lyndon B. Johnson’s legendary arm- twisting and a Congress dominated by his fellow Democrats” (Fox News). President Nixon and President Carter both tried to create health plans, however the Watergate scandal intervened as well as the economic recession. Since 1935, most presidents have run on an agenda to promote health care, whether big or small, and have tried to pass numerous bills, most of which were deferred by the public’s interest in other events. (Fox News)

“[A] major problem with care organization and delivery is insufficient attention to benefit-cost trade-offs” (Fuchs Emmanuel). The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), is presented to offer more pros and fewer cons to women, compared to men. “Many of ObamaCare’s new benefits for women are required by law to have no out of pocket payments” (ObamaCare: Pros and Cons of ObamaCare). Another expansion in health care laws was Medicaid, which was expanded to “cover over 15 million previously uninsured low-income individuals and families under the poverty line” (ObamaCare: Pros and Cons of ObamaCare). There have been several beneficial things that have molded Medicare into the most popular provisions. One of which is the increase of coverage options and benefits for millions of seniors. Hospital payments and home health care payments have also gone down with the use of Medicare.

“With the Affordable Care Act, businesses are now required to offer affordable health insurance coverage to at least 95 percent of their full-time staff and their dependents. If they don’t meet that requirement, employers could be fined between $2,000 and $3,000 for each employee annually” (Craver). Some small business and family owned shops are now focusing on the numbers and where their business falls compared to how to grow the business. Thousands of business owners and CEOs have complained about these new requirements. “It IS happening,” insisted Joseph Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which has 1.2 million members. “Wait a year. You’ll see tremendous impact as workers have their hours reduced and their incomes reduced” (Myers). NBC News spoke with nearly twenty small businesses and other entities from all over the nation, and the majority said that because of the new law they would have to decrease the number of hours for most employees. These new implementations have been nicknamed the “employer mandate”, which has been delayed until July. Now businesses with more than fifty employees, “will not be penalized for failing to offer insurance to full-time employees until January 1, 2015” (Myers). A recent Gallup poll found that because of the Affordable Care Act, a mere forty-one percent of small businesses have inaugurated a hiring freeze, nineteen percent have shriveled their workforces, eighteen percent have “reduced the hours of employees or part-time”. “Nearly four in 10 small businesses – 38 percent – told pollsters they “have pulled back on their plans to grow their business” in anticipation of the law’s implementation” (Tennant). With all these troubling testimonies, it is hard to see that only .2% of firms that meet the criteria do not currently provide insurance to their full-time employees. (ObamaCare: Pros and Cons of ObamaCare) Another problem with these new requirements is that the federal law has lowered the amount of hours one must work to be considered a full-time employee, leading businesses to cut employees hours so they are not classified as full-time and therefore do not have to be provided with insurance.

There are dozens of different views, both positive and negative, of the Affordable Care Act. Some of the issues with the new law are over funding women’s health services such as contraception. There are a couple of restrictions formatted into the law, which prevents these services to women based on religious vocations. ObamaCare also standardizes insurance premiums and finds ways to lower the costs and improve the quality of insurance and inhibit insurance company abuses. Some of the benefits of the healthcare law include giving Americans access to hundreds of new health care benefits and having access to preventive and wellness services with no out of pocket costs. “ObamaCare is projected to cost $1.1 trillion over the next ten years, and in order for the program to work as intended this is going to include funding from the tax payers and from the States. However, the end results of ObamaCare’s spending is a $200 billion dollar reduction of the deficit over the next decade, states also receive between 90-100% of funding for most ObamaCare related programs they set up” (ObamaCare: Pros and Cons of ObamaCare).

As the new health care website rolled out it experienced numerous glitches that defaced the value of the health care system as well as the federal government. One of the main problems people experienced when they logged on to healthcare.gov was that only a few people that attempted signing up were able to get pass error screens, long periods of waiting, and system crashes (Obamacare). “Up to one-third of the 149,000 individuals who have been able to sign up for Obamacare-44,700 people-may not have health insurance after all come Jan. 1, even though Healthcare.gov accepted their applications confirmed coverage” (Clyne). Currently there are 11,634,654 members enrolled, as of February 20, 2015 (acasignups.net). Currently there are twenty-two states refusing to expand Medicaid and twenty-eight that are expanding Medicaid (22 States are Refusing to Expand Medicaid).

Health care reform has been a major topic for several decades and does not seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Even with the current advances in these procedures, this path ahead of the nation is daunting. The country seems to be split down the middle, with some for universal healthcare and some against it. While it is unlikely to be resolved soon, the issue of healthcare is quite interesting with an extensive history.

Works Cited

• “ObamaCare: Pros and Cons of ObamaCare.” Obama Care Facts. Obama Care Facts. Web. 14 Oct 2013. <http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-pros-and-cons.php>.
• “The history of the US health care reform effort.” Fox News. (2012): n. page. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/27/us-health-care-reform-efforts-through-history/>.
• Craver, Richard. “Some employers cutting hours for part-time workers to avoid new insurance mandate. “Winston-Salem Journal. (2013): n. page. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://www.journalnow.com/business/business_news/local/article_0b1d4d5a-086b-11e3-9c25-001a4bcf6878.html>.
• Fuchs Victor and Ezekial Emanuel. “Health Care Reform: Why? What? When?” Health Affairs. (2013): n. page. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/6/1399.full>.
• Myers, Lisa. “Businesses claim Obamacare has forced them to cut employee hours.” NBS News Investigations, NBS News, 13 08 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/13/20010062-businesses-claim-obamacare-has-forced-them-to-cut-employee-hours?lite>
• Tennant, Michael. “Small Businesses Cutting Jobs, Hours to Save Themselves From ObamaCare.” New American. (2013): n. page. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/15785-small-businesses-cutting-jobs-hours-to-save-themselves-from-obamacare>.
• “Obamacare Website Glitches Reveal Larger Government Problems.” Huffington Post, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2015.

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