Health Care Policy and Advocacy

Nurs 8100 Health Care Policy and Advocacy
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Nurs 8100 Health Care Policy and Advocacy
Health care policy and associated issues remain a major debate and at times contentious in contemporary America beyond the political sphere, and to the public domain. Issues in health care policy are categorized into two primary divisions; there are those that relate to health care coverage and others to the underlying cost of health care. The former accounts for health insurance encapsulating other fundamental elements including how it is paid for and the extent of its coverage. The latter constitutes policies that underscore costs aimed at reducing overall health care spending. Coverage and costs are major staking points because coverage facilitates access to health care and insulates persons from high health care spending burdens, while costs relate to the reduction in prices for health care services. The two elements will be central in addressing the controversial lining in the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), with the prevailing matter being placed under scrutiny of the CDC’s (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) policy analytical framework.
Definition of the Policy Issue
Former United States (U.S.) president, Barack Obama will be fondly remembered for the inception of the ACA. The law was enacted in March 2010, and some consider it “the most monumental change in U.S. health care policy since the passage of Medicaid and Medicare in 1965” (Eno et al., 2016; Center et al., 2017, p. 111). Also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Act of 2010 (PPACA), ACA aims at ensuring that healthcare among American citizens is a right rather than a privilege. This aspect is enshrined in the law’s three primary goals. The first among these is making affordable health insurance available to more people, orchestrating the expansion of the Medicaid program, and supporting innovative medical care delivery methods whose design facilitates an overall reduction in health care costs (Healthcare.gov, n.d.). The plans were ambitious for the newly-formed government.
One can relate to the great considerations in highlighting the government ambition was apparent in the then prevailing numbers. In that regard, approximately 50 million Americans were uninsured and even worse, close to 19% of this figure constituted the non-elderly population (Kominski et al., 2017). On the other hand, about 91% of this uninsured population has incomes below 400% federal poverty level, which means that they were eligible for the advantages accrued under the ACA. This position meant that ACA was well placed to enhance the healthcare access and outcomes for low-income populations. The people in the 400% threshold mentioned earlier were to receive subsidies that would be fundamental in the helping them buy insurance. The inception of the law in 2010 has resulted in the number of uninsured falling from the 50 million mentioned earlier to about 20 million (McIntyre & Song, 2019). This improvement cannot be disregarded, although one has to question the cost of these changes.
The authors of the law expected to achieve these proposi...