The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on North Carolina's Uninsured Population

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 Im...