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The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a healthcare reform with provisions for health insurance coverage for uninsured individuals, lower costs, improve the efficiency of health care, preventative care, extension of dependents to age 26 and also prevent insurance companies from denying or increasing premiums for pre-existing conditions (Green, 2018).

The number of uninsured individuals under age 65 of the population went from 16.6 percent before ACA took effect to only 10 percent in the first quarter and the number keeps decreasing. ACA has increased the number of individuals with health insurance thereby helping in reducing cost in the health system. ACA invests in programs such as Partnership for Patients that is designed to improve quality care by reducing hospital acquired conditions; it is estimated the initiative has help save 125,000 lives and 28.2 billion dollars in health care cost from 2011 to 2015 ACA also supports public health prevention efforts by providing funding for programs and mandates insurance companies to cover preventative care (APHA, 2017).

The role of the nurse in implementing the law:

Nurses as lifelong learners and change agents have to continue expanding their knowledge to transform with today’s healthcare system with the focus on preventive care. Nurses can advocate for the at risk population in the community, reduce health disparities, and improve health and wellbeing. Nurse’s also need to be involved in the community, know the stakeholders in the community who are interested in supporting the community and helping with the change process, and also get involved in politics to voice the needs in their communities (Green, 2018).

References

APHA, (2017). Why do we need the Affordable Care Act? Retrieved from https://www.apha.org › files › pdf › topics › aca › why_need_aca_2017 

Green, S. (2018). The Environment Policy and Health Effectiveness. In GCU’s, Community and  public health: The future of health care. Retrieved from https://www.gcumedia.com/digital-resources/grand-canyon-university/2018/community-and-public-health_the-future-of-health-care_1e.php

Post 6:

The Affordable Care Act represents the most significant transformation of the American health care system since Medicare and Medicaid. It is argued that it will fundamentally change nearly every aspect of health care, from insurance to the final delivery of care. The ACA was signed into law under the Obama Administration with the goal of adjusting the affordability, quality and availability of health insurance and, by extension, healthcare as a whole. This law is complex, but four important elements of the Affordable Care Act in relation to community and public health are:

-Expansion of access to insurance coverage- the affordable care act aims at covering of more than 30 million people who have not been insured.. This is done through expansion of both private as well as public insurance.

-Increase in consumer insurance protection- this is achieved through : prohibition of lifetime monetary caps in insurance coverage as well as limiting of the annual caps

-Emphasis on prevention and wellness- this element establishes a prevention & public fund for provision of grants to various states to enhance prevention of diseases.

-Improvement in health quality and system performance- this outlines various provisions for the improvement of quality as well as system performance. For instance, research to enable effectiveness of a number of medical treatments as well as demonstration of projects in order to develop mechanisms for payment so as to improve efficiency and results.

-Promotion of health workforce development- the ACA outlines the issues of workforce by use of various provisions for instance, supporting of new primary models of care such as medical homes as well as team management of chronic illnesses.

The ACA places a greater focus on outcomes, with more pressure on nurses to show they can give effective care. This means the demand for advanced practice nurses (APNs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) has also increased. With the current and projected nursing shortages and recent demand during pandemic crisis, I honestly feel like we're headed for disaster with nurses that are under more stress.

Madeleine J. Kerr, Sebastiana del Rosario Gargantua‐Aguila, Kari Glavin, Michelle L. L. Honey, Nursen O. Nahcivan, Selda Secginli, Karen S. Martin, Karen A. Monsen, Feasibility of describing community strengths relative to Omaha system concepts, Public Health Nursing, 10.1111/phn.12558, 36, 2, (245-253), (2018).