Obamacare has been embroiled in controversy since the day it was first revealed by President Barack Obama on March 2010. The opposition faced by Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL has seen no respite even after 9 years since it was first disclosed to the public. From day one, it faced the issue of being too complicated to be understood by the majority of the people. According to one survey, 4 out of 10 people for whom Obamacarewas meant for did not understand it completely.
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What is Obamacare?
Obamacare was basically a reform for the way health insurance functions in the US. The goal was to provide affordable healthcare to people who did not have access to it. This is why the name of the bill was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). It aimed to provide access to people who were previously unable to afford it or could not access it through the private healthcare insurance companies.
America’s Healthcare Crisis
Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL was a step in the right direction given the healthcare crisis that had plagued the US since the past few decades. The US had been left well behind western European countries in terms of healthcare reforms and access to the masses. Even Canada has a better healthcare system in place than the US according to many experts.
The crisis in the healthcare insurance sector is evidenced by a few facts that indicated the necessity of a radical reform before 2010. Healthcare costs were increasingly steep in the country and the medical care had become so inaccessible for the majority that according to one research, it had become the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. This highlights how badly the health insurance system needed a change and that too immediately.
Prior to Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL, the healthcare system wasn’t faring well on many metrics including cost, coverage, and quality, particularly cost and coverage, since the costs were increasing while coverage was declining. This situation meant that there was an urgent need to radically reform the way healthcare coverage worked in the US.
Did Things Improve After Obamacare?
According to one report, the number of people who have availed health insurance after Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL was enacted has increased by more than 20 million people. This means that a lot of people who previously did not have access to affordable healthcare could now take advantage of Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL and ensure that they were covered under the new program.
The number of bankruptcies due to the cost of healthcare has decreased by more than 50% after the enactment of Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL. Though the goal is to reduce this figure to zero eventually, Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL has made great strides towards the end goal that previous solutions weren’t able to achieve. Keep in mind the number of people who were still uninsured in 2018 was still around 28 million, which is a very high figure. This indicates that further work needs to be done so that the end goal is completely achieved.
To further evaluate whether Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL is a blessing or a curse, we need to first understand some basic facets of it.
Who is it For Exactly?
This is the basic thing we should understand before moving on with our evaluation. Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL is not for everyone. It is for people who have been previously faced discrimination by the private healthcare insurance companies and the government support given through Medicaid. People who had previously not been catered to by these two avenues were planned to be covered under Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL.
The beneficiaries would have had at least an income that was equivalent to the federal poverty line but the cap was put on incomes that were at least 4 times of the federal poverty line. The people between these two boundaries were eligible for support from Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL.
But, obviously, it was not as simple as this otherwise the massive confusion surrounding it would not have arisen in the first place. There were some other terms and conditions, in addition to the above criteria. Below we discuss some of these conditions to get an idea about the type of people Obamacare is meant to benefit.
People Who Have Healthcare Coverage through Employer
This condition might be applicable to a lot of readers so make sure you fully understand this condition. If you have a job where your employer provides healthcare benefits then you might not be a beneficiary of Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL.
This is highly contingent on whether the healthcare access provided to you is deemed affordable and one which provides minimum value. If this is the case with the healthcare coverage given to you by your employer then you are not eligible to be a direct beneficiary of Obamacare. Though you could still buy plans from the federal or state insurance marketplace which might give you a better deal than your employer but these plans will not provide you any subsidy.
This condition makes it clear that Obamacare is primarily targeting people who did not have access to healthcare previously. So it might be much more beneficial to people who are self-employed, unemployed or work for a company that does not provide any healthcare benefits or coverage.
People Who Are Eligible for Medicaid or CHIP
People who are already eligible for Medicaid or CHIP cannot benefit much from Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL. These programsare also playing a role in providing access to healthcare to people who could not previously afford it but they are targeting a different segment of the society than Obamacare.
Medicaid is available to most people through their state which means that they already have access to healthcare. CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) is available for all children who live in households where income is two times the Federal Poverty Line. And few states even raise this criterion till three times the Federal Poverty Line. So children who are already benefitting from CHIP don’t need further help from the government.
People Who Are Eligible for Neither
Unfortunately, there are some segments of society that have been left uncovered even after Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL. These include people who are not covered by Medicaid, employer, private healthcare companies or Obamacare. These are predominantly people living below the Federal Poverty Line.
You might be wondering why Obamacare does not cater to these people. After all, the purpose of Obamacare was to ensure that everyone has access to healthcare benefits one way or the other. Why then, has Obamacare failed to account for these people who obviously have nowhere else to go?
A big reason for this gap is that the government while working on the initial draft of the affordable care act, had assumed that this group would be provided healthcare benefits through Medicaid. But that assumption turned out to be a mistake as the Supreme Court ruled that the states cannot be forced to widen the coverage of Medicaid unless they want to do it themselves. This meant that a group of people who were too poor to afford any other form of healthcare is stuck without any sort of health insurance coverage.
Illegal Immigrants
Immigrants who were in the United States illegally are not eligible to receive any benefits from Obamacare. This was another deterrent for illegal immigrants to not enter the United States except through the legal ways provided.
However, immigrants who had entered the country through the legal route and were living below the Federal Poverty Line were allowed to benefit from Obamacare in Lake Nona, FL.This seemed strange to plenty of people because citizens who were living below the Federal Poverty Line were not provided any benefits through Obamacare.
There was a reason for this, of course. The government, as discussed earlier, had envisaged that Medicaid will provide the citizens with healthcare facilities and so did not include them in the beneficiaries of Obamacare.
Changes by Trump Administration
When Obamacare was initially enacted it enforced a penalty on anyone who was eligible to avail healthcare from Obamacare and did not do so. This exempted people who were already on other healthcare plans that they did not wish to change. This penalty was to be paid along with the tax returns. This penalty served the purpose of encouraging people to take advantage of the benefits provided under Obamacare and discourage people who had no healthcare plans from staying uninsured.
However, in 2017 under the Trump Administration, this penalty was waived off while the remaining aspects of the act were still retained.
Evaluation
It seems that Obamacare was indeed a blessing for many people as evidenced by the 20 million people who took advantage of it. But it did fail to achieve its task completely because it did not cater to the people living below the federal poverty line even after the Supreme Court judgment. In the end, it depends on the part of the society that you belong to. For some, it’s a blessing while for others, it didn’t do much. However, it is certainly better than the previous healthcare system.
Call us at 407-344-1228 or email us at [email protected] to schedule your FREE Obamacare consultation or for any other insurance needs you may have.