General Trends In Health Care Legislation Over The Past 5 Years

Risk Management in Health Care
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Risk Management in Health Care
Until 1798, the federal government had not directly involved itself in healthcare legislation. However, the passage into law of the Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen by President John Adams marked the beginning of active involvement by the federal government in healthcare legislation (Maryville University, 2019). Today, regulatory and legislative bodies at all levels of government (federal, state and local) have made momentous milestones in the promotion of public health through major legislation. Over the past five years, the trend in healthcare legislation has been marked by the passing of three major legislations that will continue to influence the quality, affordability, and access to healthcare for millions of Americans.
Generally, the tendencies in health care legislation over the past five years can be summarized in three key points. To begin with, the legislations have enhanced collaboration between health plans and health systems. Going forward, health plans will be more successful if they can identify specific consumer needs and connect those needs to tailored health solutions. This observation is exemplified by the ratification of the 21st Century Cures Act in 2016 intending to personalize and modernize health care while streamlining the system for greater efficiency (Gabay, 2017).
Another point is that recent legislation such as the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015 encourage health systems to be more concerned about the patient’s needs and welfare as opposed to just focusing on the illness. As such, MACRA will likely push health systems towards risk contracts that are either fully capitated or shared to fit well into the value-based reimbursement system (Maryville University, 2019). Last but not least, some healthcare legislation such as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 may possibly grind down the achievements that have been made by previous laws like the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in terms of managing population health. However, people may have more freedom to choose their preferred health insurance cover. The TCJA was passed by Congress in December 2017 and became effective on 1st January 2019 (Cauchi, 2018). The law was meant to delay an industry tax and eliminate mandate penalties on individuals. Consequently, the TCJA is projected to obliterate some achievements that had been made through the Affordable Care Act in terms of insurance coverage (Glied, 2018).
A long trending healthcare concern that motivated the ratification of TCJA was the existence of individual mandate penalties that were implemented through the ACA/Obamacare. These penalties pushed all Americans, especially high-income, healthy people who could not qualify for subsidized health insurance to secure coverage. As such, there have been efforts to eliminate the penalties so that those who prefer alternative coverage plans can enroll without the restrictions of the ACA’s coverage regulations. Following the Decembe...