Social Sciences Research: Affordable Care Act Policy

Affordable Care Act policy
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Affordable Care Act policy
The selected social problem is poor health care for the poor and the aged. The earliest identified policy written at the federal government level with regard to this social problem is the Social Security Act, which made Medicaid and Medicare into law. In 1965, Title XIX and Title XVII of the Social Security Act were signed into law by the then President Lyndon Johnson (Oberlander, 2015).
ACA intended to address the social problem of poor health care for the poor and the elderly by establishing a publicly-run insurance for both the poor Americans and the aged Americans. Medicaid was intended for the poor while Medicare was intended for the aged. Title XVII created Medicare that offered public health coverage to aged Americans above 65 years. Medicare law was made up of Part B and Part A. Part A covered hospitalization and it was universal for anybody who was getting Social Security benefits. It was financed by payroll taxes on employees and their employers. The recipient paid a deductible that was roughly equal to the 1st day of being hospitalized, and then Medicare paid for them following 2 months (Baicker et al., 2011). Part B covered outpatient and doctors’ services, for instance laboratory tests, X-rays, and doctor visits, after the recipient met a small annual deductible. The Medicare insurance program, as Oberlander (2015) pointed out, used the fee-for-service model, whereby the government repaid doctors and hospitals for the reasonable, customary and usual fees they charged for every service and did not manage provider networks or hospitals. Medicaid was created by Title XIX, which offered public health coverage to America’s poor families who received Aid to Families with Dependent Children (Baicker et al., 2011).
At the time Social Security Act establishing Medicaid and Medicare was enacted in the year 1965, the society viewed the social problem and the people affected in that the poor and the elderly were viewed to have limited access to healthcare coverage and healthcare spending was increasing. In essence, the poor were viewed as people who cannot receive high ...