The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is touted as one of America’s significant achievement in the area of healthcare reform. Given the ACA, there has been a substantial decline in the number of uninsured individuals in the country.
The ACA reformed the Health Insurance system by implementing two significant policies – It opened the Health Insurance marketplace to offer more policy options and competitive advantages to the citizens. Next, it extended the Medicaid program eligibility to cover families with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty line.
The ACA also backed the policy applicants on the grounds that there would be no discrimination based on their existing health status. This started a spree of competitive and complementing policies in the market, attracting more and more individuals to enroll for the various Health Insurance programs.
Following are the four significant advantages of the ACA, also popularly known as the “Obamacare”.
1. Curbing the rise in Health Cost
The ACA has introduced free Preventive Care program that ensures patients get treatment before they are in need of the emergency room services. This has resulted in a substantially slower increase in Health care costs for the year as compared to the previous years.
2. Extending Health Insurance to cover additional illnesses & medical conditions
The ACA has extended the scope of Health Insurance policies to cover an additional 10 medical conditions including treatment for mental, addiction and several chronic diseases.
3. Coverage granted for Patient’s existing medical condition.
The ACA has laid out strict rules on discrimination by the Health Insurance Companies, who can now no longer deny granting policies to applicants with a pre-existing medical condition.
4. Children covered under Parent’s policies. The ACA has roped in Children into their Parent’s Health Insurance policies. This means children will be covered under their parent’s policies until the age of 24.
