Still seven years later, people are confused by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) a.k.a Obamacare. I have to check and see if Websters has adopted that term yet. The famous debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama gave birth to acceptability of the word “Obamacare. The vast majority of the public believe that Obamacare is a special type of program that one signs up for and is given insurance that is government insurance. Insurance that is inferiority to private insurance plans. While the insurance has certain mandates that ACA requires, the deductibles and coverage are out of reach for most people to utilize the coverage effectively. As it were in the 1990’s high deductibles and large out of pockets cost make people avoid upfront treatment. Treatment for diabetes, prenatal care, heart disease and many types of cancers are treatment and most times curable if caught in the early stages. Ninety percent of cancers are curable if diagnosed and treated at stage one. It seems that the ACA never had a chance from the very beginning. ACA set rules on private companies that offered medical insurance and expanded Medicaid eligibility on the state level. What it didn’t do was to establish options when insurance companies decided to leave a state market or offer affordable programs. For the last several years insurance companies have offered programs with high costs both in premiums and annual out of pocket costs. In addition to high costs, insurance companies have cut doctor and hospital networks and have made patient access to medical providers extremely difficult. Again people avoid going for upfront medical treatment as a system that should be easy has become very complicated .As costs continue to raise and insurance companies offer complicated programs,at some point the government will have to offer a healthcare plan that fall through the cracks in the current system. The election in November will decide will decide the future of Obamacare.
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