The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Public Health, and the Elusive Target of Human Rights

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lance Gable
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Patient Protection ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Impact

The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March 2010 represents a significant turning point in the evolution of health care law and policy in the United States. By establishing a legal infrastructure that seeks to achieve universal health insurance coverage in the United States, the ACA targets some of the major impediments to accessing needed health care for millions of Americans and by extension attempts to strengthen the health system to support key determinants of health. Yet, like many newly passed legislative provisions, the ultimate effects and significance of the ACA remain uncertain. Those charged with implementing the ACA face formidable obstacles — indeed, some of the same obstacles that have been erected to impede other major pieces of social legislation in the past — including entrenched political opposition, constitutional challenges, and what will likely be a prolonged struggle over the content and direction of how the law is implemented. As these debates continue, it is nevertheless important to begin to assess the impact that the ACA has already had on health law in the United States and to consider the likely effects that the law will have on public health going forward.

scholarly journals The impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on insurance coverage and cancer‐directed treatment in HIV‐infected patients with cancer in the United States

Cancer ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 126 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelsey L. Corrigan ◽  
Leticia Nogueira ◽  
K. Robin Yabroff ◽  
Chun Chieh Lin ◽  
Xuesong Han ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Patients With Cancer ◽  
Patient Protection ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals Obamacare 2012: Prognosis Unclear for Interventional Pain Management

2012 ◽  
Vol 5;15 (5;9) ◽  
pp. E629-E640
Author(s):  
Laxmaiah Manchikanti
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Pain Management ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Patient Protection ◽  
Medical Education And Training ◽  
Interventional Pain Management

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), informally referred to as ObamaCare, is a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. ACA has substantially changed the landscape of medical practice in the United States and continues to influence all sectors, in particular evolving specialties such as interventional pain management. ObamaCare has been signed into law amidst major political fallouts, has sustained a Supreme Court challenge and emerged bruised, but still very much alive. While proponents argue that ObamaCare will provide insurance for almost everyone, with an improvement in the quality of and reduction in the cost of health care, opponents criticize it as being a massive bureaucracy laden with penalties and taxes, that will ultimately eliminate personal medicine and individual practices. Based on the 2 years since the passage of ACA in 2010, the prognosis for interventional pain management is unclear. The damage sustained to interventional pain management and the majority of medicine practices is irreparable. ObamaCare may provide insurance for all, but with cuts in Medicare to fund ObamaCare, a limited expansion of Medicaid, the inadequate funding of exchanges, declining employer health insurance coverage and skyrocketing disability claims, the coverage will be practically nonexistent. ObamaCare is composed of numerous organizations and bureaucracies charged with controlling the practice of medicine through the extension of regulations. Apart from cutting reimbursements and reducing access to interventional pain management, administration officials are determined to increase the role of midlevel practitioners and reduce the role of individual physicians by liberalizing the scope of practice regulations and introducing proposals to reduce medical education and training. Key words: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, interventional pain management, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Independent Payment Advisory Board, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Accountable Care Organizations, Medicare, Medicaid

The Impact of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansions on the Sources of Health Insurance Coverage of Undergraduate Students in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 107755872110158
Author(s):  
Priyanka Anand ◽  
Dora Gicheva
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The Affordable Care Act ◽  
Medicaid Expansions

This article examines how the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions affected the sources of health insurance coverage of undergraduate students in the United States. We show that the Affordable Care Act expansions increased the Medicaid coverage of undergraduate students by 5 to 7 percentage points more in expansion states than in nonexpansion states, resulting in 17% of undergraduate students in expansion states being covered by Medicaid postexpansion (up from 9% prior to the expansion). In contrast, the growth in employer and private direct coverage was 1 to 2 percentage points lower postexpansion for students in expansion states compared with nonexpansion states. Our findings demonstrate that policy efforts to expand Medicaid eligibility have been successful in increasing the Medicaid coverage rates for undergraduate students in the United States, but there is evidence of some crowd out after the expansions—that is, some students substituted their private and employer-sponsored coverage for Medicaid.

scholarly journals Problems of health insurance coverage and health care in the United States: public and private solution strategies

1992 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 270-286
Author(s):  
E. Richard Brown
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Private Insurance ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Health Care Financing ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Financing System

A nearly universal consensus has developed in the United States that the current health care financing system is a failure. The system has been unable to control the continuing rapid rise in health care costs (by far, the highest in the world), and it has been unable to stem the growing population that has no health insurance coverage (at least 36 million people). There is nearly universal political agreement that government must provide health insurance to a far greater share of the population than ever before. The political debate now focuses on whether this expanded government role should supplement the private insurance system with an enlarged public program covering those left out of private insurance coverage, or replace private insurance with a universal government health insurance program covering the entire population.

Better Than Nothing: Participant Experiences in Using a County Health Plan

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 13-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Rovin ◽  
Rebecca Stone ◽  
Linda Gordon ◽  
Emilia Boffi ◽  
Linda Hunt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Patient Protection ◽  
Access To Health ◽  
History Of ◽  
Better Than

The United States health care system has reached a crisis point, with 49.9 million Americans now living without health insurance (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, and Smith 2011). The United States government has responded to this crisis in a variety of ways, perhaps the most visible being the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March 2010. With a goal of expanding access to health insurance to 32 million Americans by 2019, the ACA marks an important moment in the history of United States health care reform with the potential to drastically change the United States health insurance landscape (Connors and Gostin 2010). The law delineates only general categories of required benefits and leaves it to each state to decide the specific benefits that will be provided by the insurers in their state (Pear 2011).

Financing and Insurance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel H Zuvekas ◽  
Earle Buddy Lingle ◽  
Ardis Hanson ◽  
Bruce Lubotsky Levin
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public And Private

The complexity of US healthcare systems is staggering. In 2015, Americans spent approximately $3.7 trillion on healthcare, averaging almost $10,000 per person. Further, Americans rely on a mixture of public and private health insurance coverage to pay for the bulk of the healthcare services they receive. To provide a better understanding of the financing of healthcare in the United States, this chapter examines major government healthcare programs and funding. It begins with a look at the US public health insurance system and the healthcare “safety net,” comprised of a patchwork of public, private, and philanthropic providers and programs. The next sections look at how US insurers and families pay doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, and other healthcare providers to deliver services in the United States and how pharmacy services are financed in public health.

scholarly journals A national study of the association between language use and health insurance coverage in the United States

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Garth Nigel Graham ◽  
Rashida Dorsey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Study ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

Background: A significant proportion of individuals seen in US hospitals speak a language other than English. A number of reports have shown that individuals who speak a language other than English have diminished access to care, but few have examined specifically language barriers and its relationship to health insurance coverage. Objectives: To estimate the impact of language use on prevalence of reported health insurance coverage across multiple racial and ethnic groups and among persons living in the U.S. for varying periods of time. Design and participants: Cross sectional study using data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey. Main measures: The main outcome measure is health insurance status. Key results: Persons who spoke Spanish or a language other than English were less likely to have insurance. Among Hispanics who speak Spanish or a language other than English, only 50.6% report having health insurance coverage compared to 76.7% of Hispanics who speak only or mostly English. For non-Hispanic whites who speak Spanish or a language other than English, 71.7% report having health insurance coverage compared to 83.4% of non-Hispanic whites who speak only or mostly English, this same pattern was observed across all racial/ethnic groups. Among those speaking only or mostly English living in the U.S. <15 years had significantly lower adjusted odds of reporting health insurance coverage compared to those born in the United States. Conclusions: This was a large nationally representative study describing language differences in insurance access using a multi-ethnic population. This data suggest that individuals who speak a language other than English are less likely to have insurance across all racial and ethnic groups and nativity and years in the United States groups, underscoring the significant independent importance of language as a predictor for access to insurance.

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