Week 3 Discussion The ACA or the AHCA Imperfect Solutions to Increasing Access to Health Care

Paper Instructions

TASK

Post your initial response to one of the two topics below.

The ACA or the AHCA Imperfect Solutions to Increasing Access to Health Care?
This week discussion focuses on the federal government role in protecting the public health using the ACA and current efforts to “repeal and replace the ACA. Please note that the government role in protecting the public health did not begin with the ACA.

In the late 1800s, Lilian Wald brought health care to the community. And in 1965, Congress passed bills authorizing Medicare and Medicaid. Since 1965, Congress has expanded government-sponsored health care to pregnant women and children.

Topic 1

  • Compare the current provisions in the ACA with those in the failed first version of the AHCA. S
  • Share your opinions about why the AHCA failed in the first attempt at passage.

Topic 2

In addition, subscribe to the \”HealthCetera\” podcast and listen to the podcast weekly. This is a production of WBAI, free speech radio of Pacifica Foundation Radio in New York City. Diana Mason and Barbara Glickstein are founders and co-directors of the Center for Health Media Policy (CHMP).

Both are recognized as experts in media, nursing, health, and health policy. They have a longstanding relationship as producers and moderators of HealthCetera, a live, award-winning radio program on public radio and iTunes. They are bloggers for Disruptive Women in Health Care and for the American Journal of Nursing (AJN).

The CHMP is an interdisciplinary initiative for advancing the health of the public and healthy public policies through media, research, education, and public forums.

Listen to a podcast related to the ACA or AHCA.

  • Describe how you identified advocacy for the topic in the podcast, include examples.

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Current Provisions in ACA & Failed First Version of AHCA

The Affordable Care Act or the Patient Protection Act enacted during the Obama administration, and pushed by the democrats has the key provisions targeting reduced costs of healthcare, increased healthcare insurance for the low earners and making healthcare accessible to all (McIntyre & Song, 2019).

Moreover, the provision of this act also put more emphasis on health promotion measures as a means of reducing burden on already overstretched healthcare systems. Healthcare service providers are called upon to promote efficiency of the treatment options, cutting down on healthcare fraud and abuse of the health insurance provisions.

In terms of the insurance, there was a deliberate move to significantly reduce uncompensated care offer patients’ alternative forms of health insurance covers (Silberman, 2020). Patients with pre-existing medical conditions were also beneficiaries of the ACA in the healthcare system.

On the contrary, the America Healthcare Act (AHCA) was a Republican agenda pushed through during Trump administration. Its main motive was to repeal and replace the ACA (Fiedler et al., 2017). However, there were several provisions that did not go well with some of the Republican legislators. One among them was the expansion of Medicaid.

This was viewed widely by the Republicans as an extension of the ACA. There was a capping introduced to ensure that the federal government will subsidize the healthcare cost up to a certain level beyond which the state government will be required to fill in the remaining deficit.

There were 19 states that rejected the expanded Medicaid under ACA, hence in the AHCA such states were offered a safety net funding to help increase resources for Medicaid providers. While the ACA offered insurance subsidies based on income and cost, on contrary the AHCA replaced the subsidies on credit based on age.

References

  • Fiedler, M., Aaron, H. J., Adler, L., & Ginsburg, P. B. (2017). Moving in the Wrong Direction — Health Care under the AHCA. New England Journal of Medicine, 376(25), 2405–2407. https //doi.org/10.1056/nejmp1706848
  • McIntyre, A., & Song, Z. (2019). The US Affordable Care Act Reflections and directions at the close of a decade. PLOS Medicine, 16(2), 1–3. https //doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002752
  • Silberman, P. (2020). The Affordable Care Act Against the Odds, It’s Working. North Carolina Medical Journal, 81(6), 364–369. https //doi.org/10.18043/ncm.81.6.364

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