Obamacare, officially called The Affordable Care Act, was launched in 2010. It has been a topic of heated debates among the experts for a long time. It was a first of its kind medical health benefits program around the world and it made possible for the poor sections of the society to avail costly healthcare at affordable prices. Affordable Care Act was designed to protect people from the policies of insurance companies that believe in jacking up prices and reducing facilities for their customers. Here are some of the pros and cons of this Act. If you find it helpful you can pay for essays here.
Pros
- It provides protection to large number of people – This is the biggest advantage of Obamacare. More than 16 million people have got health insurance under this Act so far.
- It has made healthcare very affordable – Affordable Care Act has literally made healthcare affordable for millions of poor Americans. They have to pay small insurance premiums to receive world class healthcare in government and private hospitals now.
- Care without limits of time – This Act provides relief to patients with chronic illnesses. They were denied cashless treatment by their insurance companies after the expiry of their term plans earlier.
- Low cost of medicines – Obamacare has brought down prices of drugs which is a big relief for the poor sections of the society. Prices of prescription and generic drugs across the country have come down significantly in the last 8 years.
- Patients can avail more screenings now – One big advantage of Affordable Care Act is the provision for many free screenings. Preventive features of this Act are loved by individuals who are proactive with regards to their health.
Cons
- Penalties for those who do not register – This is one feature of Obamacare that is disliked by many people. It penalizes people for not having a health insurance under the assumption that they are passing their medical costs to others.
- Complicated signing up procedure – One needs to register himself on the portal of this Act which can prove to be cumbersome for many people, especially senior citizens.
- Difficult to access a doctor in many areas – Obamacare brought many more citizens under the net of healthcare insurance. Doctors started to receive requests for large number of appointments, creating long waitlists for patients in areas where concentration of doctors was small.
- It increased unemployment and decreased productivity – This is an interesting observation made by many experts. Many businesses reduced their hours of work to decrease their number of employees. This was done to avoid being asked to provide mandatory Affordable Care as it is necessary for companies with more than 50 employees.
- It deprived many families of their insurance plans – As Obamacare required insurance companies to provide 10 essential services, many insurance companies cancelled their existing insurance plans. Many families lost their insurance cover as these companies asked them to replace their plans with costlier plans.
- It has led to a shortage of doctors – With more and more patients visiting doctors, there has been a shortage of primary care doctors around the country.