The Individual Mandate: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

The Individual Mandate Element of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act First Name and Last Name Class Date Introduction The nature of public policy is that it is informed by evidence obtained through the collaboration of various stakeholders with interest in meeting the public’s changing needs. Public policy, therefore, aims at achieving certain current and future goals. Such was the case with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and in specific, the individual mandate element, which has been controversial since the PPACA was signed into law. To better understand the individual mandate and its surrounding controversy, it is important first to understand the goal of the PPACA. PPACA was formulated as part of the health care system reform in the United States (U.S.) by President Obama with the aim of (i) improving access to health care, (ii) protecting patients, and (iii) lowering the cost while improving the quality of health care. The element of the individual mandate was part of the strategy put in place to meet these goals, especially the one for patient protection. It refers to the requirement by law for citizens to have insurance coverage, failure to which results in a penalty. However, this element has raised many controversies and was recently repealed by President Trump’s government. This paper aims at understanding the worldview bases for and against the individual mandate element, the conflicting roles, and limits of the government, and the consequences of the mandate and its annulation.[M. BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Fitzgerald, T. Bias, and T. Gurley-Calvez. "The Affordable Care Act and Consumer Well-Being: Known and Unknowns." Journal of Consumer Affairs 51, no. 1 (2015): 1-27.] [Fitzgerald, Bias, and Gurley-Calvez, “The Affordable Care Act,” 4.] Worldview Bases for the Individual Mandate The individual mandate has evoked many emotions among different stakeholders within the U.S. health care system since its inception. The decision to make individual mandate a provision for the PPACA was largely informed by the successful implementation of such a clause in the Massachusetts health care reform. This provision in Massachusetts proved helpful in decreasing the number of uninsured individuals and given that the goal of PPACA was to increase access to health care, this provision seemed practical. When the number of individuals with health coverage increases, the cost of care in the health care system is likely to reduce because there will be less unpaid medical bills that are transferred to the rest of the citizens, a high number of uninsured individuals only imply that there will be more uncompensated care because while access is not universal, getting sick is universal. This worldview has policy implications in public health because it is in line with the need to reduce the overall burden of health care cost.[BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Molly Frean, Jonathan Gruber, and Benjamin Sommers. "Premium Subsidies, the Mandate, and Medicaid Expansion: Coverage Effects of the Affordable Care Act." Journal of Health Economics 53 (2017): 72-86.] [Frean, et al., “Premium Subsidies,” 74.] [Frean, et al., “Premium Subsidies,” 74.] Further, the individual mandate reduces possible adverse selection....