POL 201 Week 2 Obamacare

POL 201 Week 2 Obamacare







Policy-making in the Federal System and Obamacare
Name
POL 201
Instructor Spencer Walsh
August 5, 2013

Policy-making in the Federal System and Obamacare
The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act bill, also commonly known as Obamacare was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on March 21, 2010. This bill was then signed into law on March 23, 23010 by President Barack Obama with a final reconciliation bill signed on March 30, 2010. The intentions of this law are to expand and extend quality, affordable health care insurance coverage to citizens of the United States. Even though the intentions in passing this bill into law may have appeared to be good and beneficial to the citizens, upon reading some aspects of this law, it is obvious that this law raises issues of the constitutional framework of federalism.
There are many uninsured people in the United States today and Obamacare looks to getting these people health care coverage. According to Harrington (2010) Obamacare will require most legal residents to have health care coverage that meets minimum requirements unless the minimum coverage cost exceeds eight percent of their income. There will be a penalty in place for noncompliance. Medicaid which is the taxpayer-funded health care program will be expanded to people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. This expansion will include adults who are neither elderly nor disabled and without dependent children (Para. 5).
Health insurers will have to insure all applicants regardless of any health conditions the applicant may have. This law also requires health insurers to extend coverage to adult children of the insured up to the age of 26. The cost of the new health care program is projected to be funded by cost of premium subsidies as well as Medicaid expansions in which this means it will be funded by tax-payer dollars.
The pros to this health care law are that many uninsured are...

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