Analyzing the Fiscal Accountability

Affordable Care Act

The following will be a research on the Affordable Care Act of 2010 and its social and economic effectiveness.

President Obama has made extensive changes to the health care system, with detailed reforms being introduced in the form of "the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" that was incorporated in to the law on March 23, 2010. The law proposed the following improvements in the existing system:

Provisions were added that expanded coverage.

Better control and monitoring of health care costs.

An improved system of health care providence.

This legislature demanded U.S. citizens and legal residents to have health insurance (Summary of the Affordable Care Act -- The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2013).

Purchase of coverage will be easier as the law has opened up "state-based American Health Benefit Exchanges." "

Premium and cost-sharing credits have become more accessible to families that rank between 133-400% of the federal poverty scale (the level being $19,530 for a family of three in 2013)

Coverage purchases have become accessible to small businesses. The law has made it compulsory for employers to pay penalties if their employees are being subjected to tax credits on health insurances through an Exchange.

The act aims to expand Medicaid to 133% of the federal poverty level by targeting health plans, Exchanges, individuals and small group markets.

Social and Economic Success

More than 2 million people have benefited from the ACA due to tax credits that have helped them pay their premiums. In the year 2014, around 5 million people are projected to have benefited from cost sharing with an average of $4,700 per individual (Furman, 2014). The ACA has been predicted to slow down the annual insurance increase that has continued its steady rise at a rate of 4.6% since 1960. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the ACA is expected to create a deficit of $109 billion from the year 2013 till 2020.

Whether one possesses health insurance or not, the ACA has expanded the reach of medical care to much needed factions of the society (Furman, 2014). The ACA also prevents discrimination and any prejudices in the health care system. The law protects the patients, being sick is no longer an equivalent of financial ruin.

However, ACA has brought its own set of complications as well; all around the country, employers are reducing the work week to less than 30 hours per week to dodge the law and save money on employee health care (Burke and Kamarck, 2013).