Four Components of Healthcare

Four Components of Healthcare Name Institutional Affiliation Four Components of Healthcare The Protecting Preexisting Conditions and Making Health Care More Affordable Care Act of 2019 was introduced by Democrat leaders on March 26, 2019. The design of this bill is to expand and strengthen the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It is expected that over 13 million people will benefit through reduced health insurance premiums, while millions of other Americans will be able to access health insurance coverage (Aron-Dine, 2019). The bill was introduced by Representatives Frank Pallone (Energy and Commerce Chairman), Bobby Scott (Education and Labor Chairman), and Richard Neal (Ways and Means Chairman). The new bill is also composed of new provisions that will expand ACA subsidies, enhance the generosity of ACA premium tax credits (PTCs), finance navigators and outreach, repeal rules made recently on non-ACA coverage, and rescind recent rules made under section 1332 (Keith, 2019). This paper examines various components of the new bill and how it will affect health care services in the community. Components of the Healthcare Bill There are three main components of the bill, and their main focus include expanding the affordability of healthcare, undoing decisions made by the Trump administration to repeal ACA, and promoting state transparency and innovation. Evidence indicates that the new legislation closely resembles a bill that was introduced recently by house democratic leadership in March 2018 (Glied & Jackson, 2017). The main difference between the present and past legislations is that the present bill does not appropriate payments for cost-sharing reductions. Nevertheless, the bill ensures that individuals with pre-existing conditions are protected. It also reverses the harmful actions of the Trump administration that aimed at sabotaging the ACA (Thompson, Gusmano, & Shinohara, 2018). The bill aims at restoring the crucial enrollment and outreach healthcare funding, which is being repealed by the Trump administration, and offer funds to navigators so that consumers can be able to access health care. In essence, the new legislation would enhance the affordability of health care by reducing health insurance premiums with an expanded and strengthened affordability assistance. Description of the Healthcare Components The first component that has been addressed in this bill is affordability. To start with, the ACA premium tax credits (PTCs) will be expanded to people who are eligible to buy coverage in the individual market. The income of these individuals could be more than 100% of the federal poverty level (FPL) (Keith, 2019). The second aspect of the component is that PTCs will become more generous since it would lower the contributions which people must make towards insurance coverage. Third, access to PTCs would be extended to people who do not qualify for subsidies as a result of the “family glitch.” It is expected that the new changes will be effected starting from the 2021 financial plan. Currently, the only individuals who can access PTCs are those who earn between 100 and 400% FPL, which is approximately $12,100 and $48,500 (Keith, 2019). Since eligibility is limited at 400% FPL, it implies that a ‘subsidy cliff’ was created by ACA for people who earn above this income. Therefore, since these people cannot earn these subsidies, most middle-income consumers have experienced affordability challenges resulting in coverage losses. This has made middle-class aged population living in rural areas to be subjected to the highest premiums since they are unsubsidized. Therefore, the ACA’s subsidy cliff will be eliminated by the new bill implying that both middle and upper income families will be able to access PTCs. The second component aims at undoing the sabotage that has been done by the Trump administration since 2017. The first objective is prohibiting the current administration from enforcing or implementing the new section 1332 waiver guidance, including the expansion of the short-term plans and association health plans. Certain changes to health insurance coverage will be codified by the legislation to ensure that most people are able to access crucial health benefits. Qualified health plans will be used to cover various classes of prescription drugs to ensure that rehabilitative services are covered at parity with habilitative services (Crowley & Bornstein, 2019). The regulations also allow marketplace plans to be sold with standardized cost-sharing that has been set by the Secretary. The Trump administration had eliminated the standardized plan options when it introduced the payment rule in 2019, and this implies that the plan option would be restored by the new legislation. Another crucial aspect of the new legislation is that $100 mill...