Discussion: Week 1 What health policy do you believe has had the greatest impact on health care in the United States? Explain your rationale.

Discussion: Week 1 What health policy do you believe has had the greatest impact on health care in the United States? Explain your rationale.

Discussion: Week 1 What health policy do you believe has had the greatest impact on health care in the United States? Explain your rationale.

Topic 1 DQ 1

Assessment Description

What health policy do you believe has had the greatest impact on health care in the United States? Explain your rationale.

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Topic 1 DQ 1

The healthcare policy that I believe has had the greatest impact on healthcare in the United States is the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The law implemented broad reforms aimed at enhancing the accessibility, quality, and affordability of health care. The ACA has minimized the number of uninsured individuals in the US to historically low levels and helped many people, especially people of color and low-income earners to access healthcare services (Park et al., 2019). According to ASPE (2023), more than 40 million Americans had been covered under the ACA by the beginning of the year 2023, which is the highest total on record. Bustamante et al., (2019) also reported that ACA has made tremendous progress toward addressing long-standing challenges that the US healthcare system is facing such as affordability, access, and quality of care. After the passage of ACA into law, the rate of uninsured has significantly declined due to the law’s reforms.

 The ACA has facilitated access to health coverage by Americans throughout their lives and also provided various tools to bring the increasing cost of care under control (Gao et al., 2022). The law is consistently transforming the healthcare payment systems. Notably, before the adoption of ACA, the US healthcare system relied on “fee-for-service” payment systems, which repeatedly penalized care providers and healthcare organizations who sought to deliver efficient healthcare and also failed to incentivize providers and organizations for improved quality of care. The law has transformed the healthcare payment system in various important ways. ACA has introduced alternative payment methods such as Accountable Care Organizations and bundled payments (Gao et al., 2022). These payment methods and associated reforms have led to a sustained period of gradual growth in healthcare spending per enrollee and improvements in the quality of healthcare.

References

 ASPE. (2023). Health coverage under the Affordable Care Act: Current Enrollment Trends and State estimates. ASPE. https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/current-health-coverage-under-affordable-care-act

Bustamante, A. V., Chen, J., McKenna, R. M., & Ortega, A. N. (2019). Health care access and utilization among US immigrants before and after the Affordable Care Act. Journal of Immigrant and minority health, 21, 211-218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-018-0741-6

Duggan, M., Gupta, A., & Jackson, E. (2022). The impact of the Affordable Care Act: evidence from California’s hospital sector. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 14(1), 111-151. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190279

 Gao, P., Lee, C., & Murphy, D. (2022). Good for your fiscal health? The effect of the affordable care act on Healthcare borrowing costs. Journal of Financial Economics, 145(2), 464-488. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.09.003

Park, S., Stimpson, J. P., Pintor, J. K., Roby, D. H., McKenna, R. M., Chen, J., & Ortega, A. N. (2019). The effects of the Affordable Care Act on health care access and utilization among Asian American subgroups. Medical Care, 57(11), 861-868. https://doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000001202