BHA415 Module 2 Discussion Post 2

1. Directly respond to at least one classmate in a way that extends meaningful discussions, adds new information, and/or offers alternative perspectives.

All party’s in society have accumulated historic gains in health insurance coverage due to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) extensive coverage development that began in 2014 (Park, 2016). The uninsured rate decreased from 13.3 percent to 9.1 between 2013 and 2015, causing the sum of uninsured to fall from 41.8 million to 29.0 million which yielded a decrease of 12.8 million (Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2016).

            According to the National Institute of Health Policy (NIHP), there are three major reasons for healthcare reform; Healthcare quality and costs, healthcare accessibility, and healthcare system practices (so Nikolai, 2017). One of the biggest problems is that the healthcare insurance is high that many people are not able to afford it or pay out-of-pocket expenses themselves.

            The single payer healthcare is a system designed where the government pays for healthcare for everybody. It should be the ultimate goal for everybody, however there could be a few drawbacks from it. First, if there were a substantially large number of people to partake in this program, it could give the government the power to negotiate lower prices for healthcare. In contrast, other countries with public health have pointed out of having longer wait times and little access to some treatments (CitizensCount, 2018). Some argue that the single-payer option would destabilize insurance coverage for 20 percent of the U.S. economy (Harris, 2019).

            The Affordable Care Act is an essential move forward. By making health coverage to be affordable and accessible, the ACA can help start to decrease disparities, improve health results, decrease health spending and improve access to preventive care.