The Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act reforms in the American healthcare system are aimed at expanding the coverage, reducing healthcare costs and preventing insurance companies from varying premiums according to the health status ( Young & Kroth, 2017) . The successful implementation of the reform requires individuals to have health insurance, either provided by the government, employer or individually purchased. The government has resorted to offering subsidies and expanding the Medicaid to ease the transition into the new healthcare system. According to the report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Florida has been reported to be leading in the new signing up for the coverage on healthcare.gov where close to 500,000 people have registered with the ACA. With weeks into the enrollment period, the new people signing up for the 2018 Affordable Care Act plans have gone past the previous years despite the uncertainty over the legislation.
Positive Effects of the Healthcare Reform in Florida
The healthcare reform has helped reduce the healthcare costs by making services available to the millions of the low-income individuals who could not afford to pay the high hospital bills. Once a person is covered under the ACA, he can access healthcare services at a lower cost. Also, free preventive care is provided by the health insurance plans. All the qualified health insurance plans must provide the ten essential health benefits, amongst them including free preventive and wellness visits with no pay or any coinsurance ( Rice et al., 2013) . Through the subsidies offered by the federal and state governments to expand the healthcare reforms, the purchasing of the healthcare reforms has been made less costly for those who qualify. This has been beneficial to the low-income individuals who could not afford the high costs. Many people, especially the low-income families have benefited greatly with the healthcare reform in Florida by gaining access to cheap healthcare services.
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Due to the more inclusive nature of the ACA in Florida, it has been able to include uninsured Americans under 138 percent of the poverty level. Due to this inclusivity, more people are covered, including the poor who cannot afford to pay for the healthcare services. At the same time, the children of those covered under the health plan have also been able to enjoy the healthcare services until they are adults. The healthcare plan has been covering children of those insured under the plan. This has been beneficial to these families as they can reduce the cost of healthcare services that they could have used in healthcare services for their children. The coverage has been expanded to include more people who can now effectively and cheaply access better healthcare and improve their health conditions.
Negative Effects of the Healthcare Reforms
The individuals who fail to get covered under the plan may face huge tax penalties ( Atun et al., 2015). This has had negative economic effects on those fined, which could, as a result, affect their living standards. The health insurance companies are canceling individuals’ plans and hiking premium rates which is as a result of the unstable markets. Florida has only one insurance option because of the insurance cancellation. This has led to decreasing competition and rising costs. Similarly, certain businesses may find it cost-effective to pay off the penalty and allow their employees purchase own insurance rather than provide employer-sponsored coverage. This will negatively affect the employees who will end up losing the company-sponsored health plans. The healthcare reform has also led to the shrinking of the insurance networks because most companies reduced their provider networks in attempts to cut costs during the ACA implementation.
Despite the various negative impacts of the healthcare reform in Florida, many people have greatly benefited from the program. Millions of the low-income individuals have been able to obtain cheap healthcare services which have improved their health outcomes.
References
Atun, R., De Andrade, L. O. M., Almeida, G., Cotlear, D., Dmytraczenko, T., Frenz, P., ... & De Paula, J. B. (2015). Health-system reform and universal health coverage in Latin America. The Lancet , 385 (9974), 1230-1247.
Rice, T., Rosenau, P., Unruh, L. Y., Barnes, A. J., & Saltman, R. B. (2013). United States of America: health system review. Health systems in transition , 15 (3), 1-431.
Young, K. M., & Kroth, P. J. (2017). Sultz & Young's Health Care USA . Jones & Bartlett Learning.
