Obamacare: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Name
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Affiliation
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as the Obamacare, faced numerous challenges starting from the time of its inception to the recent implementation of the health care program. The rising inflation, due to the slow recovery of the American economy from the 2008 financial crisis, continues to propel the cost of healthcare in the U.S. Many people were finding it hard to gain access to quality medical care due to the high costs of the important services. President Obama’s administration formulated a healthcare program that aimed to make the critical services affordable or easily accessible to the American people. The noble gesture from the national government would elicit different views across the political divide and from other stakeholders in the financial sector. The article focuses on some of these divergent views based on two provisions of the Act that have been the cause of major changes in the employment sector.
In compliance with the provisions’ requirements, employers are making adjustments in their internal healthcare programs that their employees enjoyed with them. However, the corporate reaction is the center of a major debate between various newspaper personalities with some supporting the move by these companies and others opposing the move. The contentious provisions in the ACA demanded that most of Americans have a medical or health insurance cover by January of 2014 or face tax penalties. The same punitive measures would be taken against any company with at least 50 employees and not offering health coverage to those working at least 30 hours per week.
The article gives an example of the action taken by Walmart stores who under the second provision of the act, decided to remove from their health cover those employees who work less than 30 hours per week. The move, replicated by 62 percent of the major retail store is sharply criticized by Forbes columnist Rick Ungar who accuses the stores of increasing the taxpayers’ burden who have to dig deeper into their pockets to cater for the uncovered Americans. Jon Healey of Los Angeles Times and Waldman from the Washington Post’s disagree with this argument urging those that are cut off from their employers’ health covers to enroll with the ACA.
Questions
2. Yes. The health insurance cover gives access to quality healthcare services for critical or fatal ailments that are usually too expensive and unaffordable to many people in most cases. Medical covers should also provide the whole body scans twice per year thus ensuring that the family members update their health status. The ACA offers quality health services to everyone thus standardizing medical services inclusive of subsidies hence saving some cash on the same withou...