Sir_Excellence

The Affordable Care Act was enacted in March 2010. One of the primary goals is to support innovative medical care delivery methods designed to lower the cost of health care generally.1 The US healthcare system is one of the most expensive in the world.2 The policy controls both consumers and industry costs; it affects low income and high income consumers, hospitals, drug makers, medical device makers, public health insurance, private health insurance, and more.2  Some of the measures for the Affordable Care Act are:

Minimum Benefits

ACA mandates minimum benefits and minimum value for plans.2 This allows less Americans to struggle with health insurance costs and taxpayers and hospitals can struggle less with medical debt and unpaid bills.2 Also, free preventive care and covered benefits leads to less healthcare spending since the focus has been shifted to wellness and prevention.2

Dollar Limits

Through this policy, insurers cannot impose dollar limits on essential care. This leads to health care cost being more affordable and helping hospitals to avoid being stuck with unpaid bills.2

Medicaid Expansion

About tens of millions more American will receive access to care due to the expansion of public health insurance to the 138% Federal Poverty Line.2 This decreases the number of unpaid emergency care due to lack of health insurance.2

In 2009, the United States spent an estimated $2.5 trillion dollar on health care compared to in 2015 with spending about $3 trillion.2 The provisions of the policy were expected to cost more at first but will decrease premium growth, health care consumer spending and industry spending over time.2  I believe that the Affordable Care Act is a good policy that is in place, even though spending may have increased in the beginning, after a while the policies will be integrated into the healthcare system and decrease the spending for the country.

References

1. U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Website. Affordable Care Act (ACA) https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/affordable-care-act/ Accessed March 24, 2017

2. Obamacare Facts. How does Obamacare Control Costs? http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-control-costs/ Accessed March 24, 2017