Affordable Health Care Policy

Healthcare Policy
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was made into law on March 23, 2010. It took effect on January 1, 2014, when eligible citizens could access services as provided by the law. Some of the changes brought about by the law included expansion of Medicaid insurance, individual and employer responsibility and state health insurance exchanges operationalized, and the flow of individual and small-employer group subsidies (Hall & Lord, 2014). This law aimed at reducing the number of uninsured individuals to ensure every American citizen could access affordable health care services despite their financial capacity (Hofer, Abraham & Moscovice, 2011). Health care is considered as a human right and enacting laws that facilitate …show more content…
Before the law was enacted, strict health insurance regulations limited health coverage to most of the American public and especially the unemployed. This law came to break the barriers contributing to unaffordable health care to American citizens (Rosenbaum, 2011). This was achieved by reforming health insurance laws to open a new market for health insurance purchasing so as to increase the number of covered or insured citizens (Hofer, Abraham & Moscovice, 2011). The reforms included the establishment of tax relief, subsidies as well as enforcing shared responsibility among government, individuals, and employers. Each state was mandated to formulate ways that would see as many people as possible enrolled in health care insurance. The Medicare and Medicaid health insurance coverages were the major focus insurance for people who had no other insurance or who could not afford other health insurance coverage. As a matter of fact, Medicaid was restructured to cover all American citizens and legal U.S residents with income of less than 133% of federal poverty level (Rosenbaum, …show more content…
This is because the less income earning population is privileged to quality health care services just like high-income earners. Therefore, nurses, nursing managers, and nursing profession would be highly engaged than before. However, this is a challenge even though nurses are trained to serve the sick and needy people. The law included an aspect that aimed at improving the public's health and training health professionals (Rosenbaum, 2011). This improvement included increased staffing which reduces workload to ensure quality health services. The nurse/patient ratio should be at or near the World Health Organization standard ratio. This helps to minimize medication errors thus ensuring patient safety. Therefore, the law provides for more investment in improving the capacity or skills of primary care health professionals. Training and incentivizing the health professionals including nurses would ensure the expected outcomes of the law are easily

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