The United States in the past month has gone through a rollercoaster ride of events, from government shutdown to fiscal cliff deadline. All of these fall short to the main focus of this paper. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) will affect every person in the United States however; I will focus on the benefits of the ACA on the rural American. The ACA was passed in 2010. On October 1st, 2013 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act began the launch of health care exchange and by January 2014 will be in full vigor. ACA is a new health care reform law that is also known as Obamacare. ACA is made up of four separate acts: Affordable Health Care of America Act, Patient Protection Ace, Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act and the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. The ACA attempts to restructure the healthcare system by lowering the spending on healthcare and by providing Americans with inexpensive quality health insurance. The ACA will guarantee coverage and requires people to have coverage or pay a penalty. The penalties will come in form of tax penalties that will increase from year to year. ACA will require insurance to include 10 categories of essential benefits allowing for more people to get the coverage they need. ACA will limit the premium variation pending on age and existing medical conditions. Lastly, the ACA creates eight new taxes and fees paid by insurance companies that will help subsides the increase in cost for health insurance. The insurance can be purchase through state-based American Health Benefit Exchanges.
I believe that he ACA will be very beneficial to the rural American. It will allow for lower costs and insurance reform that will save families money. Currently, insurance policies have lifetime limits on how much insurance companies will cover. With the ACA the insurance companies will not be allowed to drop that individual due to this limit