by Cerija Oh

Created on: December 23, 2011   Last Updated: December 26, 2011

An American Health Care Reform

Medical conditions are not discriminatory by nature and can affect anyone. However, the current American health care system does discriminate. Each year, millions of Americans are left without health insurance because they simply cannot afford the cost of health care and/or health insurance. Adults make up 74% of uninsured Americans (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, & Smith, 2010). In March 2010, President Obama passed the Affordable Care Act in order to address the affordability of health care coverage for all Americans; while the new legislation is scheduled to be fully implemented by 2014 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010), it has left many Americans wondering: will it work or will it hurt?

Problems in Health Care and Who it Affects

In 2009, the United States reached a new record high of 50.7 million people without health insurance (DeNavas-Walt et al., 2010). Since low income adults really have no affordable options for health care, they often struggle with poor health and lose their jobs due to health issues (Angel, Lein, and Henrici, 2006). With an increasing amount of the population living in poverty and health care costs continuously on the rise, we could expect the amount of adults neglecting their own health care needs to continue to rise, if the health care reform did not pass.

Three out of four Americans who are uninsured are adults. Based on the enactment of this new legislation, these adults should receive quality medical care when they need it and for a cost they can afford. In effort to reconcile the issues related to affordability, stricter policies will be enforced for companies who currently do not offer health care plans in order to help their employees secure health care. Also, the new law plans to eliminate copayments and deductibles for preventive care.

Background on Health Insurance

Historically, health care costs were paid out of pocket. During the Great Depression, we began to see a transition to employer-based health care  (Shi & Singh, 2008). Not all Americans could afford their medical care, so people with medical issues found themselves in significant debt. In 1929, Baylor Hospital of Dallas acknowledged these financial issues encountered by many of its patients. As a response, the Baylor Plan was established to allow teachers to prepay into a fund for health care. The goal of the Baylor Plan was to “shore up the shaky finances of University Hospital” (Ballard, Spreadbury,

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