Health Care Utilization

Health Care Utilization Paper

Miriam Jamero

HCS/235

April 15, 2014

Donna Ferguson

Health Care Utilization Paper

I chose the Option 1 for my utilization paper because I want to know more about The Affordable Care Act or the Obama Care and actually this is one of my burning question I would like to ask during our first day of class. I will try to expound this paper according to my research and knowledge but I would like to know and to learn more information in this course.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which was signed into law on March 23, 2010. Obama Care's health care reform does a number of important things including offering Americans a number of new benefits, rights, and protections to their health care and setting up a Health Insurance Marketplace where Americans can purchase federally regulated and subsidized health insurance. This new health care reform law in America, increases the quality, availability and affordability of private and public health insurance to 44 million uninsured. The law also works to curb the growth in healthcare spending in the U.S. which has been rising at an unsustainable rate.

This recent health care reform, its effort to decrease the number of uninsured Americans, making it a legal requirement for every American to get health insurance or pay a fine. The expansion of Medicaid, the creation of health insurance exchanges, and financial incentives for small businesses are some measures to name a few in expanding access to care. Medicaid program was created in 1965 to provide insurance for the poorest Americans and children. When the Medicaid open wide in 2014, all the new people who sign up above the federal government’s old income thresholds will be classified as “new eligible.” According to Tate (2013), “In the first year three years of Obama Care, the federal government will pay for 100 percent of all newly eligible people in Medicaid, with the level reduced to 90 percent by 2020” (p. 79). These levels...