Affordable Care Act Case Study

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Pages: 4

Pre-Existing Conditions in the Affordable Health Care Act
Charles A. Flood
American Public University System

Abstract Pre-existing conditions are defined as anything such as illness, injury, sickness, disease, etc., that exists at the time of or before any event; in this case applying for healthcare. The Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare” passed in 2010 resolved this issue by stating that patients with preexisting conditions could not be denied healthcare. The GOP has submitted legislature to amend the U.S. Constitution in the repealing of the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with the Affordable Health Care Act. There are numerous changes in the GOP’s version of the health plan, but this research will be covering the aspect of patients
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“About 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. experience mental illness per year, that’s 43.8 million without health insurance”, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). “Almost 4 million births in the U.S in 2014 (due to pregnancy being classified as a preexisting condition) and 30 million Americans suffer from eating disorders at some time in their life. ( These are just a few of the statistics that define preexisting conditions that affect the healthcare …show more content…
(Lenz_2013 Ch.6.62 Pg.132) The Federal government and the state government work closely together in the development of an amendment through legislature. For example, the Republicans proposed the American Health Care Act. It has to go through the House of Representative and then the Senate for approval. This approval process will involve the federal and the state governments through their respective representative of Senators and House Representatives. “The state governments are responsible to maintain the protection of their citizens to file lawsuits against the federal government if they believe it is unconstitutional, which was most recently done during the National Federation of Independent Business vs. Sebelius (2012)” (Lenz_2013 Ch. 6.63 Pg. 135) While the state can introduce laws of their own, the federal government is under the auspice of the preemption doctrine that any state law that conflicts with a valid federal law is unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution that states that federal law is above all. (Lenz_2013 Ch. 6 Pg 137) The local government has no real policy making power, however they are expected to uphold and implement the laws set by the state and federal