Affordable Care Act (ACA): What It Is, Key Features, and Updates (2023)

FAQs

What exactly is the Affordable Care Act and what does it do? ›

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a comprehensive reform law, enacted in 2010, that increases health insurance coverage for the uninsured and implements reforms to the health insurance market. This includes many provisions that are consistent with AMA policy and holds the potential for a better health care system.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has 3 main objectives: (1) to reform the private insurance market—especially for individuals and small-group purchasers, (2) to expand Medicaid to the working poor with income up to 133% of the federal poverty level, and (3) to change the way that medical decisions ...

more widely known as the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. The act was enacted to expand coverage, hold insurance companies more accountable, lower healthcare costs, give people more choice for insurance, and increase the quality of healthcare/ health insurance. Essential health benefits.

The 10 essential health benefits include preventive care, emergency services, hospitalization, prescription drugs, mental health services, and pregnancy care. Plans also must offer dental coverage for children and may provide other benefits.

The ACA helps cut high U.S. health care costs.

In addition to increasing insurance coverage, the Affordable Care Act makes investments in programs designed to reduce the cost and improve the quality of health care.

Prevention and Wellness

The ACA requires insurance plans to cover preventive care such as immunizations, preventive care for children, screening for certain adults for conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and cancer, and a public education campaign for oral health.

Since its enactment on March 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act has led to an historic advancement of health equity in the United States. This landmark law improved the health of all Americans, including women and families, kids, older adults, people with disabilities, LGBTQI+ and communities of color.

The ACA enabled people to gain coverage by 1) expanding the publicly funded Medicaid program to cover adults with annual incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level; 2) establishing the Health Insurance Marketplace for individuals and small businesses, allowing them to purchase private health insurance (PHI); and 3 ...

Those are affordability, medical care that is innovative, and the expansion of Medicaid. The main goal of the ACA was to ensure that every American could afford a health insurance plan. This allowed families whose income put them at poverty level to be able afford their health insurance premium.

Implementation of the ACA was associated with improved patient experience and access and decreased out-of-pocket expenditures for lower income individuals, but little or no change in quality, utilization, and the total cost of care.

What is the major objective of the Affordable Care Act quizlet? ›

What is the main objective of the ACA? Increases benefits and lower costs for consumers, bolster our health care and public health workforce and infrastructure, foster innovation and quality in our system.

The ACA was enacted with the goals of increasing the quality and affordability of health insurance, lowering the uninsured rate by expanding public and private insurance coverage, and reducing the costs of healthcare for individuals and the government.

Which of the following is a main component of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? The requirement that people obtain health insurance or pay a penalty. Which is an example of modifying your environment to support change?

The Affordable Care Act requires non-grandfathered health plans in the individual and small group markets to cover essential health benefits (EHB), which include items and services in the following ten benefit categories: (1) ambulatory patient services; (2) emergency services; (3) hospitalization; (4) maternity and ...

Who does the Affordable Care Act help the most? Two categories of individuals will benefit the most from the exchanges: those who don't have health insurance right now and those who buy insurance on the individual market.

The law has 2 parts: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act.

The ACA reduced the annual increases in payments to hospitals under the traditional Medicare program. It also reduced payments to Medicare Advantage plans. Partly because of these measures, increases in Medicare expenditures have been 20 percent lower than projected since the law was enacted.

Health insurance is expensive and can be hard to afford for people with lower or moderate income, particularly if they are not offered health benefits at work. In response, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides for sliding-scale subsidies to lower premiums and out-of-pocket (OOP) costs for eligible individuals.

As of 2021, roughly 31 million individuals now benefit from ACA-related enrollment in health care programs such as Medicaid or purchased from the Marketplace. Not only has this driven down the rate of uninsured, but numerous studies have reported the positive impact of Medicaid expansion.

The health reform law known as Obamacare (officially the Affordable Care Act) is paid for with a combination of cuts in government spending and new revenue from several sources, including tax increases.

How successful has the Affordable Care Act been? ›

20 million fewer Americans are uninsured

About 20 million Americans have gained health insurance coverage since the ACA was enacted. The ACA's coverage gains occurred across all income levels and among both children and adults, and disparities in coverage between races and ethnicities have narrowed.

Health care affordability is a top concern for consumers and is often the No. 1 issue that state residents want their policy makers to work on. Health care affordability problems cause stress and anxiety for families, crowd out other critical family spending, and lead to poorer and less equitable health outcomes.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has two main goals: (1) to make health care coverage more available, affordable, and acceptable and (2) to slow the growth of health care costs in the U.S.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law on March 23, 2010. Since then, the law has led to an historic expansion of health insurance coverage across all states and all demographic groups within the U.S. This Briefing Book features key findings from two dozen reports published in 2021-2022.

The Affordable Care Act is a watershed in U.S. public health policy.

The 80/20 Rule generally requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% of the money they take in from premiums on health care costs and quality improvement activities. The other 20% can go to administrative, overhead, and marketing costs. The 80/20 rule is sometimes known as Medical Loss Ratio, or MLR.

Nationally, 16.3 million adults ages 19 to 64 gained coverage from 2010 to 2015. Nearly 11.5 million were between the ages of 19 and 44, and nearly 4.9 million were between the ages of 45 and 64. A little more than half were men (8.9 million or 54 percent); 7.5 million women (46 percent) also gained coverage.

The purpose of the ACA was to expand access to insurance, increase consumer protections, emphasize prevention and wellness, improve quality and system performance, expand the health workforce, and curb rising health care costs.

They found that the three key drivers of behaviour change are motivation and capability, which are internal conditions, and opportunity, which is an external condition. These are all interlinked and can influence each other.

What are some features of the ACA that affect healthcare insurance and reimbursement? ›

The ACA reduced the annual increases in payments to hospitals under the traditional Medicare program. It also reduced payments to Medicare Advantage plans. Partly because of these measures, increases in Medicare expenditures have been 20 percent lower than projected since the law was enacted.

With the ACA's estimated 190 million hours of paperwork annually imposed on businesses and the health care industry, combined with shortages of workers, patients will be facing increasing wait times, limited access to providers, shortened time with caregivers, and decreased satisfaction.

The ACA uses two primary approaches to increase access to health insurance: It expands access to Medicaid, based solely on income, for those with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level (FPL), and creates eligibility for those with incomes from 139% to 400% FPL to apply for subsidies [in the form of advance ...

When we think of health system strengthening at Partners In Health (PIH), we always refer to five key elements: staff, stuff, space, systems, and social support.

Acknowledging this, it is possible to divide the cost of a health care intervention into three components: direct costs, indirect costs, and intangible costs. Direct costs consist of the actual costs of delivering the intervention.