Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Consider what you have learned about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), the uninsured population, health disparities, and programs and policies intended to improve quality of care and health outcomes, while reducing healthcare expenditure. Summarize your thoughts on the future of healthcare given the provisions of the ACA—changes to Medicare and Medicaid, the individual mandate, etc., and whether or not current efforts are sufficient to reduce disparities in healthcare and improve healthcare outcomes.

Tasks:

• Evaluate the impact that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has and will have on the uninsured population in the U.S.
• Discuss current successes and failures of this act.
• Discuss implications of this act’s successes and failures.
• Explain specific policy changes that could be made to the ACA to improve its impact on overall health outcomes in the U.S.

Resources:

Blumenthal, D., & Collins, S. R. (2014, September 26). Assessing the Affordable
Care Act: The record to date. Retrieved from http://www.common
wealthfund.org/publications/blog/2014/sep/assessing-the-affordable-
care-act.

Buettgens, M., & Hall, M. A. (2015, March 11). Who will be uninsured after
health insurance reform? Retrieved from http://www.rwjf.org/
en/library/research/2011/03/who-will-be-uninsured-after-health-
insurance-reform-.html.

Kaiser Family Foundation. (2015). Uninsured. Retrieved from http://kff.org/
uninsured/.

Submission Details:

• Submit your response in a 4- to 6-page Microsoft Word document.
• On a separate page, cite all sources using APA format.