How to Fix the Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act is considered by some to be the Obama administration’s greatest success, while others brand it as its greatest failure. While the systems have plenty of flaws, its successes prevent both the Congress and the President from abolishing it outright, meaning that a process of reformation is favorable to the outright dismantlement of ACA. As a future nurse practitioner, I am required to review the system and propose a change to one core problem that I consider to be critical to ACA’s functioning.
I believe that the first issue that needs to be addressed is the costs of medical care aid. Rand’s study shows that between 2013 and 2015, roughly 23 million people gained coverage, and roughly 6 million lost it (Toussaint, 2016). This is due to the current subsidiary policy in place. As it stands, these subsidiaries make the difference between who can afford the Affordable Care Act insurance and who could not. According to CNN, over 46% of responders who did not get coverage, did so because they could not afford it (Luhby, 2016). As it stands, people who make over 47,520$ a year, or families of four with an income of over 97,200$ a year are not allowed any subsidiaries (Luhby, 2016).
As a nurse practitioner, I think that this policy needs to be changed in one of two ways. Either the subsidiary income cap needs to be raised to include those individuals and families who can barely be considered middle class, or prices for premium insurance packages, which cover all standard medical procedures, must be lowered. This could be done through the optimization and streamlining of medical processes.
References
Luhby, T. (2016). Is Obamacare really affordable? Not for the middle-class. Web.
Toussaint, J. (2016). Improve the Affordable Care Act, don’t repeal it. Web.