THE PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The law is popularly referred to as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA has been termed “the most important law since Medicare” (Harkin, 2011). The law provides new protections for health care consumers and strengthens existing protections. The law addresses the Patient’s Bill of Rights which has been needed for many years. The ACA is designed to overhaul the crumbling health care system in this country and provide affordable care, reasonable insurance premiums, prevent chronic illness, increase accessibility to health care, and improve public health programs. The ACA proposes to reward quality of health care rather than quantity through changing the ways we pay for services. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the first decade following the passage of the law the deficit will decrease by $210 billion and more than one trillion dollars by the end of the second decade.
Senator John McCain (R- Arizona), a former presidential candidate in 2008, did not support the ACA (New York Times, 2009). Senator McCain is a very vocal advocate of reforming health care but objected to many aspects of the ACA that he felt would not accomplish the goal of improving health care. Senator McCain does not support universal health care, mandated insurance coverage, or government-funded public health care. Instead, he endorses tax credits for individuals and families who do not have access to health insurance from an employer that will allow them to purchase the coverage they need. He also thinks that people should be allowed to purchase insurance nationwide and not be limited to their state of residence, thereby encouraging competition and a free-market economy. Senator McCain is a staunch supporter of prosecuting people who commit Medicare fraud and waste (McCain, 2011). Senator McCain released a press statement on March 29, 2011 announcing his co-sponsorship of a bill entitled The Health Care Bureaucrats Elimination Act. This bill seeks to repeal a measure of the ACA called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The IPAB allows unelected, unaccountable officials the power to make decisions that affect senior citizen's Medicare. Senator McCain said, “The IPAB is another one of the many flawed provisions in the health reform law that empowers government rather than patients and their doctors and it must be repealed along with the entire law,” said Senator John McCain. “The IPAB will steer our health care toward a European-style system where government bureaucrats’ decisions are put before medical care decisions that should only be between patients and their doctors. “
I stand with Senator McCain in his belief that the ACA and many of its' provisions such as the IPAB should be repealed. The ACA is well-intentioned and addresses many issues that effect our health care system, but I believe it was not thoroughly examined before the passage of the bill into law. Certain aspects of the current health care system have yet been addressed such as mandates for purchase of health insurance. Many families are struggling to put food on the table and gas in their cars in today's economy. Millions are unemployed, including nurses. Forcing citizens to buy insurance they cannot afford is bordering on the extreme. Fining those who do not or cannot afford to purchase insurance, while not requiring illegal immigrants to do the same is discrimination. The law does not address the legal right to health care either (ANA, 2010). Until the government puts the reins on insurance companies that make huge profits at the expense of Americans, I can not support the legislation. While the enactment of the ACA is a positive step forward as opposed to nothing, the state of our economy must be a major concern. The current political agenda to repeal the ACA is costing our country many months of valuable time that could be used to focus on other issues such as improving public health.