Affordable Care Act of 2010 Brief History
Affordable Care Act of 2010
Brief History of this Legislation – How it Became Law
When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March, 2010, the legislative process was saturated with tension and heated rhetoric. After a bitter, chaotic period in which legislators attempted to hold "town hall" meetings to explain the benefits of the play – and organized disruptions at those meetings set a nasty tone – it squeaked through the U.S. Congress with hardly a vote to spare. It received no votes from Republican members of the House of Representatives and barely made it through the House (219-212), with all 178 Republicans voting "no." Not one Republican in the U.S. Senate supported the ACA; the vote was 60 Democrats to 39 Republicans.
Why was this healthcare legislation so unpopular with conservatives? The answer to that question is many-faceted, and likely boils down to the fact that Obama was the one pushing the legislation ("Obamacare"); anything Obama proposed throughout the first three years of his administration was attacked and rejected by Republicans, the Tea Party, and independent conservatives. Moreover, this was – according to the opposing forces – a "government take-over" that would create "death panels" to decide if grandma should live or die. Unfortunately, the ACA became law in a toxic political environment – an environment made even more antagonistic by the daily drumbeat of smears and vicious assaults from right wing talk radio hosts – and today while 32,500,000 Medicare recipients have received free preventative screening services, and 54,000,000 Americans have coverage for preventative services (White House), the bill awaits the Supreme Court decision on ACA's constitutionality.
Change Management Scenario the Contemporary Business Environment
Typically, aggressive and rapid change management systems germinate within the private sector – only after trial and error, testing, and numerous permutations did they become standard within the public sector organization. This paradigm, however, changed in the late 1990s with a combination of rising client expectations to effectively address major socio-culture, economic, and demographic issues, and change in governmental oversight and minimal requirements pushed management in the public sector to adopt more entrepreneurial trends
Financial analysis of a U.S. publicly traded company
The natural gas industry has changed dramatically, and is much more open to competition and choice. Wellhead prices are no longer regulated; meaning the price of natural gas is dependent on supply and demand interactions. Interstate pipelines no longer take ownership of the natural gas commodity; instead they offer only the transportation component, which is still under federal regulation.
There are about 160 pipeline companies in the United States, operating over 300,000 miles of pipe. Of this, 180,000 miles consist of interstate pipelines. This pipeline capacity is capable of transporting over 148 Billion cubic feet (Bcf) of gas per day from producing regions to consuming regions?, and 123 natural gas storage operators, which control approximately 400 underground storage facilities. These facilities have a storage capacity of 4,059 Bcf of natural gas, and an average daily deliverability of 85 Bcf per day.
Kinder Morgan is an American energy company; it is one of the largest pipeline transportation and energy storage companies in North America with more than 37,000 miles of pipelines and 180 terminals. Kinder Morgan Chairman and CEO is Richard D. Kinder, the company has approximately 8,000 employees and has a combined enterprise value of approximately $55 billion. Their companies include Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE: KMI), Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE: KMP), and Kinder Morgan Management, LLC (NYSE: KMR).