PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT OF 2010 Laws and Regulations in Health Care: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 Jonathan Schellhorn HCS/430 Professor Paulette Jolley 03/17/2020 1 PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT OF 2010 2 Impact on the health care industry “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, is a law that significantly changed health care in the United States by making insurance available to over 50 million Americans or 95% of the legal population” (Amadeo, 2019). The findings of the study have discovered that when Americans got more insurance coverage through the ACA it decreased the likelihood of the American population from not receiving medical treatment by nearly 25 percent. “Gaining insurance coverage has also conjointly raised the likelihood of having a usual place of care by between 47.1 percent and 86.5 percent” (Glied, & Borja, 2017). These findings recommend that not only has the ACA decreased the number of uninsurable American citizens, but it has considerably improved access to healthcare for people who gained coverage. “By the end of the second enrollment period in 2015, the proportion of Americans citizens without their own health care provider has decreased by 3.5 percentage points and the proportion reporting an inability to afford care decreased by 5.5 percentage points” (Glied, & Borja, 2017). Commonwealth Fund survey found that a majority of these registered enrollees in an exceedingly abundant marketplace had used their insurance to go to a doctor, hospital, or other type of health care provider. “More than half of the enrollees said they would not have been able to access or afford care before getting coverage through the ACA” (Glied, & Borja, 2017). In the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) database, they discovered that a percentage smaller than 1 percent of the nonelderly population enrolled in the marketplace were likely to report not getting medical care because of cost. “On average, 2.5 percent of the U.S. population was enrolled in the marketplaces in 2014, which implies that enrollment in the marketplaces decreased the national rate of not getting medical care because of costs by 0.57 percentage points” (Glied, & Borja, 2017). PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT OF 2010 3 What Impact the Legal and Regulatory Requirements of the Law or Regulation Everyone can choose how to get coverage through the Affordable Care Act of 2010.If they already have a plan, whether through their employers, Medicaid, Medicare, or privately, they can keep it; and for the people who could not get health insurance have additional choices they can purchase it from a health insurance exchange and possibly get a health care grant which will make them eligible under expanded Medicare guidelines. Exemptions were available for a wide variety of situations such as how much Obamacare costs an individual depends on one’s age, type of plan, family size, income, and location (Amadeo, 2019). In 2011, studies showed that one out of every five adults used the emergency room which is the most expensive type of medical treatment that accounts for one-third of all health care costs in America. If that could be reduced, then health care costs and federal health care spending would also drop (Amadeo, 2019). Preventive care is considered the best way to lower the nation's Medicaid costs. A preventative care program could be designed to reimburse hospitals for all unpaid emergency room treatment. The study also showed that it is far cheaper to pay for preventive care than a visit to the hospital because preventive care lowers health care costs because treatment for diseases in their early stages is cheaper than treatment for full-blown, late-stage diseases. The Role Accreditation and Regulatory Agencies Play in the Law or Regulation The Affordable Care Act health insurance were completely certified and operational by January 1, 2014, under federal law and it had been phased in over four years. Every American citizen was required to have health insurance by March 31, 2014 or face an income tax surcharge ; however, that penalty was eliminated by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act effective in 2019 (RAND, n.d.). To accomplish this, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2019 expanded insurance coverage in three ways individual insurance marketplace, small business insurance marketplace, and medical PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT OF 2010 4 expansion. The individual insurance marketplace gave American citizens online exchanges operated by individual states or by the federal government, where American citizens can buy health insurance directly from insurers. “People with incomes between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for premium subsidies to help them buy coverage” (RAND, n.d.). The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2019 also developed a small business insurance online marketplace that created the Small Business Health Options or SHOP which its purpose is to help firms with 50 or fewer employees cover their workers medical benefits through ACA. (RAND, n.d.). The third and final expansion of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2019 is the medical expansion that created a “Broader Medicaid eligibility to include those earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level” (RAND, n.d.). PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT OF 2010 5 References Glied, S., & Borja, A. (2017). Effects of the Affordable Case Act on Health Care Access. Retrieved from https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issuebriefs/2017/may/effect-affordable-care-act-health-care-access Amadeo, K. (2019). 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Summary. Retrieved from https://www.thebalance.com/2010-patient-protection-affordable-care-act-3306063 RAND. (n.d). The Affordable Acre Act in Depth. Retrieved from https://www.rand.org/healthcare/key-topics/health-policy/aca/in-depth.html
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