Before the Affordable Care Act, Health Care in the United States was obtained in multiple ways. Approximately 33% of Americans received their health care from Medicare which is Health Care for the elderly, Medicaid which is Health Care for the poor, Tricare, and VA. Privately provided Health Care accounted for 50% of Americans, and 16% of Americans were uninsured. 16% equates to about 50 million people. Two major problems faced in the American health care system before the Affordable Care Act, 16% of the population was uninsured and health care costs were rising rapidly. The Affordable Care Act was created as a solution to these problems. Key features of the Affordable Care Act include an expansion on who has coverage, an improvement on the quality of coverage, and a reduction of costs.
The Affordable Care Act
Accomplishments, Shortcomings, and Similarities
The Affordable Care Act has two pillars to expand coverage amongst the American population. The first pillar is its policy on Individual Mandates. The Individual Mandate is a fee that you have to pay if you can afford health insurance, but choose not to buy it. Therefore,
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Before the Affordable Care Act, if you were to make a mistake on your insurance application or information. It’s possible to have your health care taken away, declared invalid from the initial day your plan started, or asked to pay back money for medical care if any. This is now illegal for health insurance companies to do. Ending lifetime and yearly limits for essential benefits on your health insurance plan was also a major part of the improvement in quality in health care, created by the Affordable Care Act. Now insurance companies can’t set a dollar or yearly dollar amount for essential health benefits while on a plan. The Affordable Care Act greatly improved the quality of health care in the United