Question

Explain how the Affordable Care Act advanced through each stage of the policy process

How the law was formed/proposed and them passed by Congress.
How it has been implemented and what agencies primarily implemented the law.
One or two ways the Affordable Care Act can be evaluated
List at least one revision to the law since it has been passed

Answer 1

Affordable Care Act : Stages of the policy process

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also known as the Affordable Care act or Obama care.It is enacted from March 23 , 2010 and the law is signed by the President Barack Obama. The main goals  of the Act were to reform private insurance market, to change the way of medical decisions and to expand the Medicaid to the poor , whose income is  133% below Federal poverty line .

Since 1965 , after passing the Medicaid and Medicare  law , there was no health care reformation happened, even though the changing Governments made many policies. American health system was almost broken and millions couldn't afford the health care services due to high cost of health care. In this situation, 111th Congress passed the law ACA.

Stages:

2009, September 7: Presented by Charles Rangel as ' Members home ownership Tax Act 2009' in the House .

Committeee consideration by the 'Ways and Means' , tax writing committee of the House of representatives.

2009 , November 7 : Passed the House

2009, December 24, Senate passed it as the ' Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act with Amendment

2010 , March 21 The amendment was agreed by the House

2010, March 23 , Signed into law by President Barack Obama .

Implementation:

Department of Health and Human services ( HHS) was responsible for implementing the law PPCA. Pre existing Condition Insurance Plan ( PCIP) came into effect and many uninsured got insurance coverage. Previously many were not eligible for coverage by Private insurance, due to pre existing medical conditions.  

In the Supreme Court case ' National Federation of Independent Buisiness V Sebelius : Allowed the states , to opt out the expansion of Medicaid. By 2016 around 10 million people from low income background had got Medicaid coverage.

Evaluation of ACA:

For measuring the success of ACA , one of the important step is to check the number if uninsured , whether the number got dropped, increased or remaining same. Manu Official survey groups such as Federal survey, Community survey etc , conducted the process of Survey and revealed that the number uninsured Americans are considerably dropped, many got coverage in the year 2013 and 2014.

By 2016 20 million people had newly enrolled for Insurance ( HHS) and through Medicaid expansion, 24 million people gained access to free care through marketplace tax credits.

Revision of the law ACA: The major revisons or amendments of PPCA were:

* Healthcare and education Reconciliation Act 2010.

* Tax payer protection and repayment of exchange subsidy overpayments act 2011.

* Tax cuts and Jobs Act 2017.