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#12- Healthcare for All – Josh Solomowitz
March 30, 2015 | Leave a Comment
As soon as something like “universal healthcare” is mentioned, Westerners usually rationalize that with dreaded communism ideology. A negative connotation associated with protecting everyone from hospital debt. And I find that very sad. Why can’t everyone be entitled to free healthcare? Why should U.S. citizens be subjected to paying insurance premiums with the insurance companies making out like bandits? To me, it just isn’t fair. I think what Obama tried to do is noble and needed.
The Affordable Healthcare Act impacted Americans in different ways. For some, it was very positive, and others, not so much. People had criticisms and much to say when it debuted (or failed to debut with technical issues) in 2013. The Republicans did almost everything in their power to stop it. And repeal it. They fought tooth and nail and have vowed to end it once a Republican takes the office again. But that’s a whole other debate.
The Act had many positives going for it. It reduced that amount of uninsured by 25%. It allowed children to stay on their parents’ health plan up until the age of 26. I know I’ll (as well as my college colleagues) will really benefit for the next few years under this. Like every action, there is an opposite reaction. People who already had coverage saw their health insurance premiums increase. In some areas, competition between insurers increased, bringing the overall price of premiums down. In other cases, the amount of insurers decreased, in regard to falling within the specific guidelines of the Act, causing prices to increase. The Middle class has been having the biggest issues with this (as usual) and have seen the highest increases.
The young (age 18-34) seem like the largest group that has benefited, along with huge reductions with the Hispanic and Black communities. Even still, both groups lag far behind Whites and Asians for percentage who have insurance coverage. The lower class reduced about 9% of uninsured, having the highest percent change out of all the income groups. This bill was for them – those that had the most trouble covering their healthcare.
States that expanded Medicaid saw a huge decrease in their uninsured – more people received much-needed coverage and were able to afford it. States that fail to expand Medicaid are only hurting themselves. After checking (and predicting this) most of the states that have failed to do so are the southern and mid-western states – mostly republican. (http://familiesusa.org/product/50-state-look-medicaid-expansion)
Those that were affected varied across the country. It seemed that the mid-western and western U.S. benefited more so than the east. Those that remain the most uninsured are from the southern states, such as Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Alabama, most of the states that have not expanded Medicaid. One thing’s for sure – this Act, even with its issues and faults, still helped out a good percentage of the population. With an estimate and constant 30 million people remaining uninsured, states need to change some of their policies to help their people. I think this Act can be amended to be made better and cover more people – but it started something that I think every single person should be entitles to.
