The Affordable Care Act

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The Affordable Care Act was created with efforts to better America's economy and assist citizens in obtaining affordable healthcare. The act prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage to patients with pre-exisitng conditions, along with charging patients higher premiums based on their health history and conditions. The act encourages all companies to offer health insurance to all their employees  or result in paying a surtax. This is important for those citizens who work for companies and do not have access to health insurance benefits. Circumstances like this contribute to the increase in many citizens without health insurance, which results in an increase in self pay patients at both doctors offices and hospital emergency rooms.

Without insurance patients are not able to manage their health effectively. Preventive healthcare measures such as, monthly follow-ups and yearly physicals are not being met. Resulting in unmanaged health conditions that decline your health. If you are not taking care of and following up on your health,   then it is inevitable for emergency room visits to occur. Many patients that are self-pay and without health insurance, turn to emergency rooms for treatment. Hospitals are not permitted to deny a patient medical help, despite the lack of insurance coverage.  Subsequently, patients are then charged paying out of pocket for emergency visits. The majority of the patients without health insurance are not financially able to pay for the out of pocket services of emergency room visits. That simply opens the door to "debt". Patients are being billed for services that financially they can not afford.

The act also penalizes those that still chose to opt-out from health insurance coverage. The initial goal of the plan is to get all citizens insured in order to lower the cost of healthcare. If all citizens were insured the demand and rates would be less competitive and more affordable. Thus, The Affordable Care Act.

Medical Assistance which is offered through the various states will also be available to a greater percentage of low income families and individuals, as long as they meet the adjusted requirements.

For those young individuals that were kicked off their parents insurance at the age of 18, they no longer have to worry about having health insurance. Now an individual can remain on their parents insurance plan until they reach the age of 26. This is helpful for those students like myself who are working to finishing school. This can potentially save a student, like myself a great deal of money.

The Affordable Care Act is solely based on your income which is more ideal for individuals. It makes absolutely no sense  that health insurance premiums are standard with companies. A CEO of a company and a general employee should not have to pay for health insurance on the same financial scale. Health insurance should be based off of income in order to meet the financial needs of all.

President Obama created the Affordable Care act with all of these aspects in mind. Trying to make healthcare more accessible and affordable. I give credit to this act for being well planned and organized with the best interest for all citizens in mind, not simply one social class over the next.