health

Discussion

Before the introduction of Affordable Care Act close to 48 million Americans who were not adults were not insured based on the slow economic recovery from recession. At the time the public insurance coverage attracted many citizens, there was still a large number of the uninsured Americans, with programs like CHIP and Medicaid not reaching those cannot pay for their insurance. The introduction of Affordable Care Act was established in 2010 to bridge the gap between the public and private mechanisms by trying to expand Medicaid, subsidizing private covers and committing to reform the healthcare insurance market. The 2007 recession was the major cause for the millions of families losing insurance coverage.

Since the insurance of healthcare is expensive therefore very few, citizens can be able to afford, and the majority of the employed Americans depend on the employer-sponsored insurance. It is also important to note that not all those employed have access to the insurance thus low in the come workforce are more susceptible from being uninsured. The Affordable Care Act provides employers with incentives to insure their employees. The Medicaid is meant to cover children from low-income households, and the coverage of the adults is limited. The reason for poor coverage is the stagnant low incomes in many states with few qualifying because they are disability eligible and also adults with no dependent children being not eligible. The plan is to increase the expansion of the Medicaid program in the majority of the states to expend the eligibility among the adults. This is motivated by the need for the states to try and increase the Medicaid coverage for the benefit of the poor adult citizens (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2012).

The rise and fall in the numbers of the uninsured have been caused by the recession and weak employment market that has driven up of the uninsured in the year 2007 to 2010. The fluctuations were created by the decrease in the employer coverage emanating from high unemployment rates. Medicaid and CHIP plays a key role in preventing the drops in the coverage of insurance by allowing more Americans to be eligible to access the programs for their family even in difficult economic times. This Medicaid and CHIP now covers close to 17.6% of the nonelderly population, and these programs have been instrumental in protecting children from economic problems (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2012).

Many of the uninsured Americans come from working families thus at least the six people not insured have one family member with a fulltime job, and 16 percent represents those with part-time jobs. The uninsured employees are at risk to earn low wages in comparison with insured workers. The people with low income make up a large share of the uninsured ones. Therefore close to 40% of the persons uninsured live below the poverty levels per year and nine out of ten of the uninsured receive family incomes below the American poverty rates. The uninsured populace covers all the American age groups. Since the introduction of the ACA, there has been a significant reduction in adult uninsured. Based on statistics young adults maintain the highest uninsured rate while children have the lowest rate due to CHIP and Medicaid programs (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2012).

Those uninsured affects a significant access to healthcare and the finances wellbeing of the persons. Over a half of those uninsured have adults have no access to medical care when sick. They worry about costly medical bills thus they more likely to forego the most necessary health care. It has been proven through research that medical coverage improves the uninsured with both physicals, reduce mortality and reduces financial strain. The delaying in getting a medical attention may cause more medical problems to the uninsured. Medical costs can strain the uninsured thus threatening their physical and mental life. Close to half of persons reported to be uninsured have a problem in clearing their medical bills in comparison with those covered.

Conclusion

The Affordable Care Act is meant to address some of the issues associated with getting an insurance coverage. The ACA is intended to expand the access to CHIP and Medicaid that subsidizes private health insurance. The majority of insurance covers in ACA took effect in 2014, and it has outlined that people should be able to access the coverage of medical insurance. The intention should be to ensure that the uninsured figure drops significantly in the coming years for America to compete with other developed economies in meeting the expected threshold of healthcare coverage.

References Foundation, K. F. (2008). Trends in Access to Care Among Working-Age Adults, 1997 – 2006. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/trends-in-access-to-care-among-working/ Foundation, K. F. (2012). The Uninsured And The Difference Health Insurance Makes. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.kff.org/health-reform/fact-sheet/the-uninsured-and-the-difference-health-insurance/