What Impact Will Federal Regulations Have Concerning Consumer Costs in the Near Future? Since its inception The Affordable Care Act or the ACA has been said to complete many of the goals it set out to achieve. Research evidence shows that there has been a decrease in the overall medical spending debt, and an increase in the instance of individuals owning health insurance. (Jost, 2018, para. 1) With the changing of the guard, the Trump administration has continued to make changes, in the health care market, such as repeals and governmental threats that are contributing to the deterioration of the ACA. This is causing cracks to form, weakening the market. (Jost, 2018, para. 2) With the cost of the defunding and repeals trickling down to the public, there will be an increase in the premiums individuals are going to have to pay for the same insurance they paid for the year before. There is relief however, with the increase in premiums there is benefit increase. For those that qualify, there will be an increase in the government tax credit to help offset the cost of the premium. The middle classes will not be able to gain relief. Those that make 100,000/yr will have to pay the increase as they don’t qualify. (Jost, 2018, para. 3) Positive Effects Current research shows that there are benefits to the ACA. As of 2018 benefits had been played out. The ACA doesn’t allow for insurance companies to place lifetime 18 the instance of uninsured individuals has been its lowest, and remains at its lowest in history. The implementation of the ACA prohibited insurance organizations from denying coverage to individuals based on medical conditions, as well as allowing for children over the age of 18 to adults at the age of 26 to remain on their parent’s insurance under specific yet not unreasonable conditions. (ARON-DINE, 2017, para. 3) Along with the aforementioned improvements, the insurance offered has also been improved. Before the ACA was implemented insurance companies could set premiums at will, as well as set life-time caps per year for coverage. This would force the insured to pay catastrophic amounts of money out of pocket when their insurance caps on policies, and limits the amount of co-pays the insured will have to pay. (ARON-DINE, 2017, para. 4) The ACA has benefitted the poorer classes of the United States by providing them with affordable health care coverage, coverage that until its inception they were able to have access to. (Collins, Gunja, Doty, & Beutel, 2017, para. 7) References ARON-DINE, A. (2017). Health Care: issues impacting cost and coverage testimony of aviva aron-dine, senior fellow and senior counselor, before the senate finance committee. Retrieved from Health Care: Issues Impacting Cost and Coverage Collins, S. R., Gunja, M. Z., Doty, M. M., & Beutel, S. (2017). How the affordable care act has improved americans’ ability to buy health insurance on their own. Retrieved from https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2017/feb/how-affordable- Jost, T. S. (2018). How Will State and Federal Actions Affect Individual Health insurance coverage for middle-income americans? Retrieved from Impact of actions on health coverage for middle-income Americans
