The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on North Carolina's Uninsured Population
Application: The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on North Carolina’s Uninsured Population
Although there is often political pressure to create programs that increase access to services, these programs often are unfunded mandates. The expansion of insurance coverage is directly linked to health care costs, and controlling these costs presents a tremendous challenge. This week’s readings present information on cost evaluation; potential trade-offs related to cost, quality, and access; and financial and economic principles that apply to cost evaluation in delivering health care services.
An example of the difficulty of addressing these competing interests can be seen in a case study concerning "The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on North Carolina’s Uninsured Population". This Assignment focuses on ethical, financial, and quality of care aspects surrounding the issue.
To prepare:
• Read the case study about "The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on North Carolina’s Uninsured Population" on pages 202–203 in Health policy and politics: A nurse's guide (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.).
• Reflect on what you have learned from the readings and media segments about health care financing as you read the case study.
To complete this Assignment, write a 5-pages paper that addresses the following:
• Explain the impact of the Affordable Care act on the population that it affected.
• Explain the impact of the economics of providing care to patients from the organization’s point of view.
• How will patients be affected in relationship to cost of treatment, quality of treatment, and access to treatment?
• What are the ethical implications of this act for both the organization and the patients?
Hello class
When approaching this topic, you can look at the ACA in totality or in your area but you should also use the case study information from North Carolina to inform and support your views. The organizations that are discussed in the questions can be government agencies, hospital, clinics, physician offices, etc. I would select your practice environment as the organizational view. (MY AREA IS HOSPITAL)
When you write this paper, please make sure you are referencing your assigned reading up to now, the section that was assigned for this paper, and external sources. You should have at least four course required references and at least three external references (references must be 5 years old or less) for this paper (SEE BELOW
Impact of the Affordable Care Act
Student Name
Walden University
Class Number, Section Number, Class Name9
Date of Submission Impact of the Affordable Care Act
Introduction
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandates all the population in the United States to have the health insurance coverage. In spite of the increasing North Carolina’ political pressure requiring the development of health programs to enhance access to health care services, many of the health programs are simply unfunded mandates. The first section of this paper will examine the impact of ACA on the North Carolina’s population. In this regard, the paper will take a critical look on the impact of ACA on the childless, nonelderly, the low-income, and the middle income populations. The section will also examine the impact of ACA on healthcare costs. The second section will evaluate the impact of the economics of patients to patients from the organization’s point of view. The third section will provide an explanation on how ACA will affect patients in terms of access to treatment, quality of treatment, and cost of treatment. The fourth section will examine the ethical implications of ACA for the patients and the organization. Finally, the paper will provide a recap of the major findings in the study.
Affordable Care Act
Both scholars and practitioners contend that Affordable Care Act has had positive impacts on the North Carolina’s uninsured population, and by extension the entire population in the United States. First, ACA resulted in decrease in healthcare costs. This is beneficial to all the population in North Carolina. For example, the percentage of the uninsured people aged less than 65 years reduced to 51.4 percent from 60.9 percent between 2004 and 2014 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2015). The ACA consists of various provisions for enhancing healthcare quality and reducing the underlying healthcare costs. Additionally, it also approved some programs aimed at enhancing the way the healthcare professionals as well as the healthcare organization coordinate care. The programs that have been authorized by ACA include the programs aimed at enhancing preventive practices as well as practices, and the ones to develop and disseminate healthcare information about new drugs and treatments both doctors as well as patients. However, the Act has negligible or no impact on illegal immigrants and undocumented residents.
The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid coverage to some North Californian population which was not covered prior to its enactment. According to Mislead (2011), before ACA was enacted, Medicaid did not cover childless, nonelderly, as well as disabled adults. This means that the people who were eligible to Medicaid coverage were the elderly, disabled, and the adults with children. Additionally, the ACA has benefited the low-income as well as the middle-income populations in North Carolina due to the healthcare premiums. Particularly, the inexpensive insurance options are beneficial to the uninsured population in the region. The Act mandated the insurance coverage of the uninsured population through latest premium tax credits as well as the expansion of Medicaid.
Organizational View of Economic Impact
From the organization’s view point, ACT has had both positive and negative impacts. On the positive note, the Affordable Care Act consists of provisions aimed at addressing the current and future healthcare workforce demands by increasing the number of health care practitioners. The Act also authorized various programs that were meant to raise the number of health care givers. Nevertheless, the major drawback of ACA is that it does not address new appropriations for funding the healthcare organizations’ increased workforce (North Carolina Institute of Medicine, 2013). The implications of this is that the federal government must take initiative to fund the additional hospitals providers. Notably, the demand for primary care has increased and is further projected to increase further due to the expansion of healthcare coverage to the uninsured population. This means that additional healthcare practitioners will be required to provide primary care for the additional patient population. According to Goodman (2012), the employers might use the potential salary increments to pay the expanded health care coverage for their employees. The act also aims at addressing determinants of health which include biology, access to hospitals and other health care services and the immediate environment in which people live and work (HealthyPeople.gov. 2010)
Cost, Quality, and Access to Care
The Affordable Care Act was enacted in order to increase patients’ access to medical care. According to Knickman, (2015) the Act was meant to result in an increase in insurance coverage for nearly 33 million uninsured people in the country the year 2022. Thus, the Act expanded the limits of Medicaid coverage in order to include the previously ineligible population. Notably, the coverage limits of Medicaid were elevated to 138% FPL (federal poverty level) (Mislead, 2011). The provisions of the Act also mandated the employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent workers in the country to provide the employees with employer-sponsored insurance programs (Knickman, 2015; Mislead, 2011). Additionally, online insurance marketplaces have created a platform for the uninsured Northern Californian population as well as small businesses to shop for their insurance coverage. Furthermore, the individual mandate is also likely to increase access to care since it requires payment of penalties for the people who do not have insurance coverage (Knickman, 2015).
In addition, the Act is expected to increase the quality of care in the health care facilities. In this regard, the Act emphasizes that the care providers as well as professionals should be reimbursed in accordance to the quality and value of their services (North Carolina Institute of Medicine, 2013). This is contrary to the traditional reimbursement of healthcare providers and professionals which was based on the quantity of their services rather than on the quality of care. It is important to note that programs such as Medicare and Medicaid only covers drugs which have been approved by FDA (Stein, 2010). The Affordable Care Act further requires that the States Department of Health and Human Services’ secretary to create the necessary quality measures that could be used in evaluating the healthcare’s outcomes (North Carolina Institute of Medicine, 2013). It has also resulted in a decline in the costs associated with treatments. Further, the Act is expected to improve the rates of health indicators which include mortality rate, morbidity rates, infant mortality rates and life expectancy (State of New South Wales, Department of Education and Communities and Charles Sturt University, 2012). The Provisions of the Act require the development of models aimed at enhancing patient outcomes, reducing payment to care providers, reducing unnecessary expenses and streamlining the administrative costs.
Ethical Implications of the ACA
The Affordable Care Act has various ethical implications for both the patients and the organization. Some critics of the Act also contend that the so-called individual mandate is unethical. According to Sorrell (2012), the Act creates changes in the social contract since it mandates the entire population in the United States to get access to medical care through the universal insurance coverage. There is also an ethical issue surrounding the Act on how to approach the minimum levels of heath care. This implies that it is uncertain whether the healthcare organizations will provide equal care or not. In...