ESSAY: Politics and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

To Prepare:

Review the Resources and reflect on efforts to repeal/replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Consider who benefits the most when policy is developed and in the context of policy implementation.

Post an explanation for how you think the cost-benefit analysis in the statement from page 27 of Feldstein (2006) affected efforts to repeal/replace the ACA. Then, explain how analyses such as the one portrayed by the Feldstein statement may affect decisions by legislative leaders in recommending or positioning national policies (e.g., Congress’ decisions impacting Medicare or Medicaid)

ANSWER

Efforts to Replace/ Repeal ACA

The Affordable Care Act has always elicited debate, with both the protagonists and antagonists of the Act emphasizing the reasons as to why it should hold, repealed or replaced. There have been efforts to either replace ACA as well as repeal it without any replacement. In March 2017, American Healthcare Act was introduced as an alternative to ACA (Butler, 2017). Though not a repeal as such, the new Act meant that individual, as well as employer mandates, were to be repealed, the ACA age-based rate to be changed from 3:1 to 5:1 as well as ensuring that the federal Medicaid funding is converted to a per-capita allotment which marks the end of states …

Benefits That Come as A Result of Policy Implementation

When a policy is developed, especially in the context of implementation, it is the service receivers or patients, in this case, that will benefit the most. It, however, has to be mentioned that it is only policies that have the interest of the receivers of service that will benefit them. In most cases, healthcare policies are developed with political reasons making healthcare reforms hard to be ….

How Cost-Benefit Analysis Affected Efforts of Replacing/ Repealing ACA