American Health Care Reform

America’s Health Care Reform

In March of 2010 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was passed. Obama’s primary initiative with this bill was to provide health care to the nearly 46 million Americans who did not have any. The cost of the bill is estimated at $940 billion over 10 years, but it will reduce the deficit by $143 billion in the first ten years, and by $1.2 trillion in the second ten years. (Jackson, Nolen) Even with positive prospects such as this, the bill has started waves of debate within Congress over whether certain parts or any of it was constitutional. But that aside it offers many beneficial health care options to Americans who normally cannot afford it. I want to talk about what this bill will do for Americans, our health care industry, the health insurance market, and its overall effect on American Society.

So what will this new bill offer for Americans? First off one of the most controversial parts of the bill, which was eventually omitted at the passing, was the idea of a “public option”. This “public option” was the idea of having a government-run health insurance program that would compete with the for-profit companies that currently provide us with health insurance. Because of the controversy surrounding this idea and the lackluster history of U.S. government intervention into private marketplaces it was dropped. But what will this new bill do to the market? Many believe it will create nonprofit organizations that will offer health insurance.

With many of the changes PPACA will be making, for-profit health insurance companies are realizing that their market will lose much of its attractiveness once all of the legislation is put into effect. Such things as restrictions on rejecting patients and the inability of putting “caps” on the amount of benefits that customers can receive will continue to keep costs rising for these health insurance companies and thus make their business more and more unattractive. As of now...