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Affordable Care Act Controversy

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The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), issued in 2010 by Former U.S. President Barack Obama, has caused such a controversy due to its way of reforming today’s healthcare system. Although, the Affordable Care Act has so far been the most important piece of health care legislation passed ever since the Social Security Act of 1965, which established medicaid to the elderly. In recent events in U.S. politics of 2017, our newly elected Republican President Donald J. Trump and the majority of Republicans plan to overthrow and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, with a more “affordable” way to gain health insurance named “the American Health Care Act”(AHCA). However, they have not realized that modifying the …show more content…

The Affordable Care Act, in its time, has helped many uninsured Americans to obtain health insurance by giving them guaranteed coverage. About 20 million Americans, based on the statistics from the New York Times’s article titled “Fact Check: Trump’s Critiques of the Affordable Care Act.”, have obtained health insurance through the ACA. Dropping the uninsured rate to 11 percent by 2013 (Qiu 2017). Americans, through the ACA, were able to get health insurance even if they got sick, which inevitably happens to many. This put insurers in a place where they cannot deny coverage to people who have preexisting conditions, or their health history. Other main points that are included in Former President Obama’s Affordable Care Act is that one, it was given as an individual mandate that all U.S. Citizens and legal residents must enroll for qualifying health care or get penalized for not signing up for insurance at all. Making the fact that getting health care is mandatory is a good way to lower the insured rates and save many Americans money when the next unexpected hospital visits or illnesses come up. Another thing is that the ACA has also expanded medicaid to all non-Medicaid eligible individuals that are under the age 65 and making medicaid more federal funded based rather than a state issue. Thus helping those who could not afford …show more content…

Many Americans were able to get health insurance even if they’re sick. Insurance providers would not be able to deny coverage to anyone who have any pre-existing medical conditions. With current President Donald Trump’s American Health Care Act already being active as law, many insurance providers can deny anyone with any pre-existing conditions such as “acne, diabetes, and pregnancy” (Chavez 2017). This example just proves that the American Health Care Act is a step backwards into achieving affordable health insurance. Other changes that are brought upon from this Act include: that states would be able to allow insurers to charge sick people more, and making it less affordable for some. According to the Congressional Budget Office, over 52 Million will be left uninsured due to unaffordable insurance plans mainly coming from the lower class (Levey and Kim 2017). The younger consumers would be charged 3x less than older consumers, but older consumers will be charged 5x more than younger consumers. Also in the Act, federal spending in medicaid and to Planned Parenthood would be defunded and would be left up to the states to decide if funding is needing in those areas. The defunding of those two factors will eventually decrease the nation’s deficit and use it in something where it is needed the most supposedly. With this said, this questions the fact that, “is the American Health Care Act honestly the most affordable way to get

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