The Affordable Care Act

Lately, I feel as though everywhere in the media we are hearing about Obama’s Affordable Care Act. This controversial piece of legislation has been intensely criticized by right wing parties and news companies like Fox. With the upcoming March 31st enrollment deadline, I thought it would be interesting to discuss.

Medicare and Medicaid refer to the US healthcare programs provided for families and individuals with low income. It’s a government insurance program – one of the most highly federally funded. Obama’s Affordable Care Act was created with the goal of increasing the “quality and affordability” of health insurance. With the upcoming deadline to enroll, Obama’s administration has been taking unique measures to speak to our younger demographic and encourage signups.

The Affordable Care Act is significant because it is expanding public and private coverage, working with (in my opinion, greedy) private  insurance companies who don’t want to have to lose money. The ACA works then to help reduce the cost of healthcare for individuals and provides certain protections to increase coverage, affordability and reliability. It also has “new minimum standards and offer the same rates regardless of pre-existing conditions or sex.”

The significance of the upcoming March 31st enrollment deadline is, in my understanding, a necessary agreement with insurance companies that prevents individuals from signing up for insurance at the last minute. In very basic terms, private insurance companies don’t want to lose money from those who enroll only when they have a serious injury or illness.

So speaking of the “unique measures” that Obama has been taking, visits to Healthcare.gov have actually increased 40% since he appeared on Funny or Die. Despite the mainly right wing criticism he has received for appearing on recent comedy sketches and YouTube channels, the numbers don’t lie. It’s working.

Aside from the political commentary, and scrutiny, all of this has been created in the news lately, the Affordable Care Act is significant for women. Maria Shriver was recent interviewed and quoted. She said that enrolling is significant for women, especially single income mothers, because many women are occupying minimum wage jobs. Many people actually say that poor people should stop being poor – they don’t work hard enough. But this is a ridiculous assumption and statement, and completely misguided. There are 42 million women working on the brink of poverty. Shriver says. They are trying to educate their kids, work 7 days a week, and it’s not enough. The Affordable Care Act is a really positive piece of legislation to try and start helping problems like this.

So what are your thoughts on all of this?