Governments often make healthcare policies to address prioritized issues affecting the population. Healthcare policies are formulated with a consideration of the different factors that affect access to and utilization of healthcare services by the population. Healthcare policies such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have transformed healthcare access and utilization in the United States. The policy has increased the utilization of health promotion and disease prevention services by the majority of the population. Nurses and other healthcare providers should be advocates of new policies that improve population health. Therefore, this presentation examines ACA and its impacts on population health.
The selected policy for analysis in this presentation is the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The policy is also known by other names such as Obamacare or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). ACA was enacted into law in 2010 under President Obama’s tenure. The policy is considered one of the major milestones in health policy. This is because ACA provides a near-universal guaranteed access to healthcare for all Americans. It achieves this by expanding the health insurance coverage among the Americans without insurances. Before its adoption, ACA was estimated to reduce the number of Americans without insurance by half. ACA has been effective in eliminating barriers to access to healthcare due to factors such as costs. Experts agree that ACA has reshaped the healthcare system in America. It has transformed the financial relationship between Americans and healthcare systems (Glied et al., 2020). Since its adoption, ACA has undergone some revisions to improve its ability to achieve the intended aim of improving the health of American citizens irrespective of their backgrounds.
The ACA was adopted with to achieve several aims. One of them was to provide universal health insurance coverage for all Americans irrespective of their backgrounds. The expanded insurance coverage would imply that all Americans could access healthcare services whenever they needed. The second aim of ACA is to improve fairness, affordability, and quality of healthcare insurance coverage. Most Americans could not afford medical insurance coverage before ACA. This meant that only a few Americans could access and afford the care they needed. The ACA addressed this challenge by ensuring affordability, fairness, and equity in the access to healthcare insurance. The policy also aimed at reducing wasteful spending in healthcare. This includes demanding the need for value-based care that focused on quality instead of quality. This move increased accountability in healthcare organizations (Dodini, 2023). The ACA also aimed at increasing access to primary care. Eliminating barriers such as cost of healthcare services implied that most Americans could access healthcare services they needed for their health issues and optimum health.
Several populations have benefited from the ACA. They include poor Americans, people without a medical insurance coverage, women and their families, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+, and people of color. Poor Americans benefited from ACA as seen from the reduced barriers to healthcare. Poor Americans can access healthcare services they need because of having ACA coverage. People without a medical insurance coverage also benefited since they could afford healthcare through ACA. Women and their families benefited from the improved access to maternal and child health services in the society. People with disabilities often experience considerable barriers in accessing healthcare due to cost (Campbell & Shore-Sheppard, 2020). However, ACA eliminated cost barriers, hence, increased access to healthcare for the vulnerable populations. People of color have low socioeconomic status, which affect affordability and access to healthcare services. Similarly, LGBTQ+ experience challenges such as stereotypes, stigma, and isolation in healthcare systems. However, ACA addressed these inequalities by ensuring that each American had a medical insurance coverage, which increased access to healthcare.
The ACA improves cost-effectiveness in healthcare in several ways. Firstly, ACA brought reforms in the private insurance market which benefited individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The policy achieved this by increasing the number of conditions covered in the health insurance packages. This in turn reduced the out-of-pocket money that patients incurred when seeking healthcare services. ACA also
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