The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the comprehensive health care reform signed into law by President Barack Obama. The law comprises a list of healthcare policies that expand access to health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans (Collins et al., 2017). In this regard, this essay examines the three main goals of ACA described by the American Public Health Association and how they have been achieved.
First, ACA aimed at expanding health insurance coverage and improving access to care. Research findings reveal that uninsured individuals continue to drop across all demographic groups (Collins et al., 2017). For instance, the number of uninsured adults in the United States aged “19 to 64 decreased to 23 million in 2016 from 37 million in 2010” (Collins et al., 2017). The decrease indicates that the goal of increasing access to healthcare coverage among the American population is being achieved.
The second goal was to shift the focus of healthcare delivery from treatment to prevention. For instance, it was found that about 70% of women aged between 35 and 65 with health coverage had received a mammogram (Collins et al., 2017). Therefore, the goal of shifting the focus from treatment to prevention has been attained because when people undergo medical checkups, they tend to change their lifestyle to avoid developing certain health complications.
The final goal of the ACA was to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of health care. Courtemanche et al. (2018) report that ACA has enhanced access to care among nonelderly people. In 2014, there was an increase in insurance coverage by 6.5%; in 2015 and 2016, the growth was 9.7% and 11.8%, respectively (Courtemanche et al., 2018). Courtemanche et al. (2018) further explain that the cost of accessing medical services decreased within this period. Therefore, these results are indicators that ACA attained its goal of reducing costs and enhancing the efficiency of healthcare.
Conclusively, the primary goal of ACA is to reform the operation of health systems, increase health insurance, enhance access to quality care, and decrease individual and public costs. The paper has examined the goals of ACA and how they have been achieved. ACA has successfully implemented its strategy for the better health of all American citizens since, through the law, insurance coverage has reached more than 20 million people.
References
Collins, S. R., Gunja, M. Z., Doty, M. M., & Beutel, S. (2017). How the Affordable Care Act has improved Americans’ ability to buy health insurance on their own. The Commonwealth Fund. Fevereiro de. Web.
Courtemanche, C., Marton, J., Ukert, B., Yelowitz, A., & Zapata, D. (2018). Effects of the Affordable Care Act on health care access and self-assessed health after 3 years. INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 55, 0046958018796361.