Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

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                                        Introduction

The signing of the aforementioned Act into law and its subsequent full implementation from January 2014 has resulted in an overhaul of policies and protocols within the United States. The Act establishes legal protections that were non-existent prior to the signing, causing a transformation with respect to cost, quality and access to healthcare.

                                        Cost

The provisions of the Act create cost-sharing and premium subsidies through which it establishes novel rules for health insurance industry, as well as creating an improved market for purchasing of health insurance. The aim was to cut cost of healthcare for both the government and the patient. Hospital protocols that deal with health cost have to be restructured fundamentally to cater for the expanded coverage of individuals who did not have affordable employer coverage (Berwick & Hackbarth, 2012). The Act achieves this by use of the modified adjusted gross income test, thereby making the cost of health insurance lower for the patients with low-income jobs, as well as the citizens with family incomes below 133% of the federal poverty line (Albright et al., 2011). Further, the reduction in cost is seen in tax subsidies and enrollment of newly arrived individuals through health insurance exchange. Hospital policies that have limited healthcare services, in the past, based on cost to the hospital and/or the patient have to be restructured accordingly.

                                        Access

Kocher & Adashi (2011) assert that in 2007, an estimated 60 million Americans were considered underserved medically, citing a shortage of primary care professionals and increased health risks. The health reforms movement picked up momentum upon this basis. However, better access to healthcare would only worsen the situation by straining the available resources in terms of facilities and personnel. The Act invested a mega expansion of the National Health Service Corps as well as in community health centers. This has resulted to a near doubling of the patients served from about 20 million individuals in 2011 to over 40 million in 2015. This shows the immense potential of the Act in improving access to healthcare. Health facilities throughout the United States continue to benefit from the money invested into healthcare, courtesy of the Affordable Care Act. The result has been an overhaul of the patient admission protocols and hospital policies that will continue to give citizens better access to healthcare.