The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, PPACA, is an initiative that was enacted into law in March 23, 2010 by the former President Barack Obama, with the primary aim of providing near universal coverage of healthcare costs while sharing expenses with the government, individuals and employers. Furthermore, the act purposed to enhance the quality, fairness, and affordability of healthcare insurance covers within the United States which would improve the healthcare values and efficiency. While the policy had the interests of citizens at heart, achievement of the primary objectives faced major challenges. However, there have been major benefits brought about by the healthcare reform. The paper purposes to compare and contrast the benefits and demerits brought by introduction of the PPAC and evaluate whether or not the legislation has brought any significant improvements in the healthcare delivery system.
Pros
Improved Access to Healthcare Insurance
The primary purpose of the initiative was to enhance accessibility of healthcare insurance by people from all regions. According to Islam, Nadkarni, Zahn, Skillman, Kwon and Trinh-Shevrin (2015) , individuals living below the poverty line could not afford any insurance covers for their health, which had increased the rate of illnesses within the states. Babyar (2018) explained that introduction of the PPACA led to increased purchase of private health insurance, with 400% of the Federal Poverty Level income earners able to pay for the overs. The increase in number of people accessing insurance covers marches the Healthy People 2020 initiative that aims at having a healthy community by the year 2020. Durenberger, (2015) argue that insurance covers will help to reduce the tax credits and improve on cost-saving strategies that can hence aid the individuals in having healthy lifestyles. The venture helped to ensure that citizens within the United States could easily obtain medical covers at relatively lower costs as compared to when the premiums are high.
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Patient Protection
Patients, despite their pre-existing conditions, cannot be denied insurance covers by any firms offering the services. Prior to the PPACA, medical examinations were conducted to verify overall health status of the patients before qualifying for any coverage. However, the stipulation avoids such examinations and subjects insurance companies to provide insurance covers to people despite their health conditions; hence, there is no criteria for selecting people to cover. Another protection that patients receive, as argued by Gaffney and McCormick (2017) , is that insurance companies are not allowed to set the minimum amount of money that patients pay for key health benefits. According to Adams, Park, Twietmeyer, Brindis and Irwin Jr (2019) , the age limit from which individuals can benefit from their parent’s health insurance plan was also raised. Individuals up to the age of 26 years can thus benefit from the plans endorsed to their parents, which improved on the healthcare delivery since most people are cited as either being in their first employment or finishing their higher education, hence have no salaries.
Improved Quality of Care with Lower Costs
One of the essential features that the PPACA has is to support existing Medicare benefits that patients had while expanding overall preventive and prescription of drug benefits. According to Mechanic and Olfson (2016) , growth of Medicare benefits would expand the care of patients who had subscribed to them, hence improving quality of care for these individuals while reducing expenses they would incur in healthcare facilities. Employee health insurance covers rank as another integral expansion brought by the PPACA since employees can benefit from the federal tax credits which are important in reducing premium cost paid to insurance companies. According to Bagley (2015) , most small business owners rank as among major beneficiaries of this practice; hence, workers, who earn low wages, would have to pay for premiums at a lower price. Furthermore, insurance companies are compelled to offer their covers as services to the community.
New Healthcare Models were developed
With implementation of the PPACA, there was the development of the Accountable Care Organizations, also called the Primary Care Medical Homes, whose purpose was to provide healthcare support at any time the patients need it. According to Adams, Park, Twietmeyer, Brindis and Irwin (2018) , development of these Care Organizations enhanced how patients could access doctors with their needs at any time. The Comprehensive Primary Care Model, for instance, allows patients to contact their doctor’s via the office over 24 hours a day, in every day of the week ( Shartzer, Long, and Anderson, 2015 ). Furthermore, due to the advanced technologies, doctors and nurses dealing with patients have access to their records over Electronic Medical Record System, which enhances quality of care. According to Pennel, McLeroy, Burdine, Matarrita-Cascante, and Wang (2016) , medical conditions of the patients can hence be prevented from becoming serious while trips to the emergency room can be avoided to reduce the cost of care.
Health of Individuals is improving
From statistics, it is evident that after the implementation of the PPACA, healthcare outcomes were improving and less people affected by diseases. According to Healthcare.gov. (2017) , patients exhibited quick recovery and improvement of their health status was evident since the signing of the law. A good example is a report made between 2010 and 2013, which indicated that 50,000 fewer people died from preventable errors and infections acquired in hospitals ( Parkinson, and Zeller, 2017 ). This is an indication that quality of care provided by doctors and nurses is relatively good, and hence patient outcomes improve. Furthermore, there was development of the “Star Rating”; a feature that helped rate performance of hospitals and satisfaction levels among patients ( Dickman, Himmelstein and Woolhandler, 2017 ). With the approach, healthcare providers opt for better quality to obtain good ratings and patient satisfaction levels.
Cons
Enrolling in the PPAC demands a set of various stages, which are not easy to navigate through. For a new person, it becomes difficult to register in the website; further, delays caused by system overloads increase time used by the people to obtain required medication. Additionally, employers in many firms seem to contend with various challenges after the implementation of the legislature. Introduction of the PPAC legislations has stirred concerns over number of working hours. According to Sterbenz and Chung (2017) , most of employers reduced number of hours that employees have to avoid covering them for extra time. This resulted in reduced earnings and affected schedules of the people.
Conclusion
The study aimed at evaluating the impact of the PPAC on the healthcare delivery system through analysis of the pros and cons the legislature had on the industry. The healthcare delivery system has benefited massively from implementation of the PPACA signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. Access to healthcare insurance, improved collaboration between the government and healthcare facilities, enhanced quality of care for patients and lowering of premiums for the patients are among real improvements that have enhanced how healthcare services are delivered to patients. Therefore, it is evident that the healthcare delivery system has secured numerous benefits owing to ratification of the law.
References
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Adams, S. H., Park, M. J., Twietmeyer, L., Brindis, C. D., & Irwin Jr, C. E. (2019). Young Adult Preventive Healthcare: Changes in Receipt of Care Pre-to Post-Affordable Care Act. Journal of Adolescent Health . 96 (2), 63-95.
Babyar, J. (2018). Medicare, Metrics and Trust in the Future. Journal of medical systems , 42 (8), 155.
Bagley, N. (2015). Three words and the future of the Affordable Care Act. Journal of health politics, policy and law , 40 (3), 589-597.
Dickman, S. L., Himmelstein, D. U., & Woolhandler, S. (2017). Inequality and the health-care system in the USA. The Lancet , 389 (10077), 1431-1441.
Durenberger, S. D. (2015). Health care reform and the American congress. The Milbank Quarterly , 93 (4), 663-666.
Gaffney, A., & McCormick, D. (2017). The Affordable Care Act: implications for health-care equity. The Lancet , 389 (10077), 1442-1452.
Healthcare.gov. (2017, July 16). Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act . Retrieved from www.healthcare.gov: https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act/
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Parkinson, J. W., & Zeller, G. G. (2017). Clinical performance measures and quality improvement system considerations for dental education. Journal of dental education , 81 (3), 347-356.
Sterbenz, J. M., & Chung, K. C. (2017). The Affordable Care Act and Its Effects on Physician Leadership: A Qualitative Systematic Review. Quality management in health care , 26 (4), 177-183.
Shartzer, A., Long, S. K., & Anderson, N. (2015). Access to care and affordability have improved following Affordable Care Act implementation; problems remain. Health Affairs , 35 (1), 161-168. Retrieved from http://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/pdf/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0755
