Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Impact of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on the uninsured population in the United States

The affordable care act under the public health policy of the United States of America has significant impacts on the health care system and its framework in the United States. The full implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will result in cutting down the number of uninsured people living in America up to half of the uninsured population. It is because the insurance coverage that will be provided to the population under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is expected to cover the 94 % of the whole population of America. As a result, around 31 million uninsured people will be benefited and the population of uninsured people will be reduced. It also has significant impact on the increasing amount of the enrollment in the Medicaid facilities that will be increased up to 15 million beneficiaries. However, the consequences reveal that 24 million people will remain without the health insurance coverage (Rosenbaum, 2011).

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 are considered to be the most important legislation after the formulation of Medicaid and Medicare created in 1965 in the United States. However, a more efficient approach has been taken to provide insurance coverage to a large population of United States through this act. The expansion of the program has included an additional 17. 1 million people who are still uninsured mature and tend to posses incomes which are lower than the federal poverty line up to 133 % and more. The act will help in the provision of a minimum mandated package of health care benefits, a renovated emphasis is provided to the prevention and cure of the individuals and it intends to establish the special provisions and state health care exchange programs to those whose incomes are below the level of 400 % within the defined federal poverty line (Virgo, Burkhardt, Cokkinides & Ward, 2010).

Importance of the provisions (Individual Mandate, Medicare and Medicaid)

The most important provision in the affordable care act is the individual mandate which will be effective from January 2014 in the United States. The individual mandate is emphasized more as compared to the Medicaid and the Medicare because it intends to serve a larger population with greater benefits of health care. It will ...