Did the ACA improve quality of care?
Asked by: Marcus Oberbrunner | Last update: October 25, 2023Score: 4.4/5 (59 votes)
Findings In this nationally representative cross-sectional study of 123 171 individuals, the ACA was associated with more high-value diagnostic and preventive testing, improved patient experience and access, and decreased out-of-pocket expenditures for lower income US individuals.
How did the ACA improve access to healthcare?
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 ...
How did the ACA impact healthcare?
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 ...
How effective was the Affordable Care Act?
More than 20 million people have gained coverage as a result of the ACA. It has dramatically reduced the uninsured rate. On the day President Obama signed the ACA, 16 percent of Americans were uninsured; in March 2020, it was nine percent.
How did the ACA change health care delivery?
The ACA took several steps to reward or penalize certain behaviors by providers in the traditional fee-for-service program. This includes initiatives such as the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, the Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program, and the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program.
The Six Dimensions of Healthcare Quality
How did the ACA make healthcare more affordable?
The ACA helps to make health care more affordable in two ways: by providing insurance coverage for approximately 50 million people who are currently uninsured and by striving to control health care costs by changing how medical services are paid for.
How did ACA affect long term care?
The ACA also made it easier for states to use federal Medicaid dollars for long-term care support systems and services, including expanding options for home- and-community-based services for people who are eligible for a nursing home but can alternatively reside at home with the appropriate support systems in place.
How does the ACA affect healthcare quality and cost?
To date, evidence has shown health spending has slowed since the ACA's passage in 2010. However, as ACA coverage expansion provisions are implemented, we are seeing an increase in overall spending, although to an extent, that is to be expected.
Did the Affordable Care Act save lives?
We find a reduction in all-cause mortality in ages 20 to 64 equaling 11.36 deaths per 100,000 individuals, a 3.6 percent decrease. This estimate is largely driven by reductions in causes of death likely to be influenced by access to health care, and equates to one life saved per 310 newly covered individuals.
What is the likely impact of the ACA on primary care?
2 Studies of the impact on use of certain services, mainly primary care, indicate that the coverage expansions are likely to lead to between 15 million and 26 million additional primary care visits annually and these studies project that between 4,300 and 7,200 additional primary care physicians will be needed to meet ...
How effective has the ACA been on expanding access to care?
Getting coverage through the ACA is also associated with very substantial increases in the probability of having a usual place of care—by 47.1 percent according to the NHIS data and 86.5 percent in the BRFSS data.
What would make the Affordable Care Act better?
Making Insurance Premiums More Affordable
ensure through 2025 that no one has to spend more than 8.5 percent of household income on premiums; previously, eligibility for premium tax credits was capped at 400 percent of the federal poverty level (i.e., $106,000 for a family of four)
How did the ACA attempt to improve access was it successful?
The ACA has gained a net increase in the number of individuals with insurance, primarily through Medicaid expansion. The reduction in costs is an arguable achievement, while quality of care has seemingly not improved. Finally, access seems to have diminished.
Is the Affordable Care Act a failure?
Not only did the ACA fail to control the rising cost of insurance, but it also failed to make health care and prescribed medicines affordable. According to a West Health and Gallup, 30 percent of surveyed individuals did not seek needed medical treatment due to the cost from September to October 2021.
Why did people not like the Affordable Care Act?
Despite these positive changes, a near majority of Americans still oppose the ACA, even though they approve of most of its features. They oppose the mandate that all Americans must have health insurance (the individual mandate), and they oppose a government role in health care.
Why the ACA does not work?
It largely failed. Health insurance markets are only afloat because of massive federal subsidies and premiums and out-of-pocket obligations significantly increased for families. While the ACA has led to about 13 million more people with Medicaid, many more have been harmed.
Did the ACA lower Americans financial barriers to health care?
A review of the research literature on the effects of the ACA indicates that the law helped protect Americans against the financial risks of illness, reduced the uninsured rate, improved access to care, and lowered out-of-pocket spending.
How did ACA impact social determinants of health?
The ACA reduced income inequality within and between social determinant of health categories, especially for states with Medicaid expansion.
What were the two main goals of the Affordable Care Act ACA with respect to health insurance?
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.
How did the ACA reduce income inequality?
Those in the lowest-income group—many of whom gained Medicaid coverage under the ACA—are better off because their out-of-pocket health spending is reduced and they do not pay private health insurance premiums. Middle-income groups gain no income benefit under the ACA.
What are 3 benefits of the Affordable Care Act?
Affordable Care Act (ACA) basics
Among other things, the ACA made it easier for many people to get coverage, removed annual and lifetime limits on essential health benefits and put in place requirements that individuals have medical coverage or pay a tax penalty.
What are two major benefits of the Affordable Care Act?
- Make affordable health insurance available to more people. ...
- Expand the Medicaid program to cover all adults with income below 138% of the FPL. ...
- Support innovative medical care delivery methods designed to lower the costs of health care generally.
Who benefits most from the Affordable Care Act?
People with the lowest incomes tended to benefit the most from the law. That makes sense, given how the Affordable Care Act is designed. In states that expanded Medicaid, low-income people can get insurance without having to pay a premium.
When was the ACA effective?
Some of the ACA's provisions became effective immediately when the law was implemented in 2010, while others are being phased in through 2020.