Obamacare Policy Vs President Trump’s Healthcare Reform

Former President Barack Obama and Current President Donald Trump both aimed at healthcare reforms with different angles. President Obama’s healthcare policy goal was to make healthcare affordable to all. His healthcare reform then became a law called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare. This Act was important because many Americans were living without healthcare as some couldn’t afford it or weren’t able to obtain it through their place of employment. His healthcare policies led to an increase in jobs, millions of Americans becoming insured with health insurance, it also cut down on the cost of uninsured patients using the emergency room as an alternative for healthcare and allowed those with pre-existing health issues to be allowed to get insurance despite their conditions. 

Current President Donald Trump proposed Trump care as a replacement for Obamacare. Unlike Obamacare, Trump care has no tax penalty if Americans don’t have medical insurance throughout the year. With Trump care you can buy insurance that doesn’t include services that you won’t need to use and the income limits for Trump care is much higher than Obama care as far as tax credits. Those are the three major differences between their healthcare policies. Under ACA (Obamacare) All Americans must buy insurance and be covered for the entire year, whereas under AHCA (Trump care) There aren’t any rules about mandating as long as the state that the individual is living in offers waivers. Eventually Trumps healthcare proposal failed, as he was promising more for less and America knew that he had no idea about the depths or day to day dealings of health care. 

Social, economic and political environment

When Obama passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act the economy was in a financial crisis. There was a recession going on at the time which had many Americans in debt and without any health care coverage. Many Americans were without employment as well with limited if any income or savings, which made considering health care insurance a burden to their household budgets. Once Obama saved the auto industry it saved millions from losing jobs as well as brought more jobs to the economy. Pulling America out of financial debt during his term allowed him to achieve his goals for his health care policy. That in turn allowed Americans to have health coverage, lowered the amount of expenses that Medicaid and Medicare faced due to overuse of emergency room visits and by 2014, the economy benefited because more than 95 percent of the population were now insured.

When Trump tried to pass his healthcare policy the economy was still doing pretty well from Obama’s term. There were more jobs, the recession had ended and Americans had just gotten comfortable with Obamacare and weren’t really up for a change. Many people believed that the only reason that Trump wanted to change Obama’s healthcare reform was to compete with his success, but not really to benefit anyone else. According to Amitabh, C. & Skinner, J. (2016) “The nation is better off with the ACA, despite its shortcomings, than without. But health insurance, health care, and health, although often used interchangeably, are not the same. Even though the ACA has, to this point, not accomplished its goal of making health care more affordable, it is also far more moderate, innovative and difficult to replace than its critics claim.” This may be true as Trumps healthcare reform failed and hasn’t really been discussed again as it is apparent that healthcare is more complicated than he or the nation would ever understand or be able to change or openly accept overnight.

Effectiveness of the policy

President Trump’s healthcare policy didn’t work out according to his plan so it wasn’t really effective since it wasn’t implemented. As stated before there wasn’t a need for Trumpcare at the time that he wanted to pass his healthcare reform because the economy was in good condition and Obamacare was in place. Congress nor the citizens of the U.S were ready for another major change within healthcare. The need to change the policy was left alone, because as far as the healthcare industry was concerned more people were receiving coverage than ever before, hospitals and Medicaid weren’t losing millions of dollars due to the lack of coverage being obtained and the recession ended so people weren’t as worried about changing the way they had gotten used to things being.

On the other hand Former President Obama’s health care policy was effective for the most part, although it still had some flaws as well. Although expectations of how Obamacare would turn out were very low. The ACA (Obamacare) has exceeded the expectations. As studies show that 17 million more Americans have become insured since the health insurance exchanges opened. 

Youth that didn’t have health coverage previously due to their employers not offering them those benefits were now covered as well. The ACA also has had to face much scrutiny due to the fact that there are still millions of people whom are uninsured. One major concern has been how to ensure high-quality, affordable health insurance for all residents and how to control the continual increases in annual health care spending, now exceeding $3 trillion. Controlling continual increases is one factor that may need adjustment, but overall Obamacare has been effective and much needed to boost the economy’s healthcare quality.

References

• Amadeo, K. (2018): “Obama’s healthcare reform plan” Retrieved from: https://www.thebalance.com/obama-s-health-care-reform-plan-3305753
• Amitabh, C. & Skinner, J. (2016): “The past and future of affordable healthcare.” Retrieved from: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2533697
• Bauchner, H. (2017): “Health Care in the United States: A Right or a Privilege” Retrieved from: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2595503
• Collier, R. (2017): “Why Trumpcare failed.” Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5415398/
• Reismen, M. (2015): “The Affordable Care Act, Five Years Later: Policies, Progress, and Politics” Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4571845/