The Impact of Federal Policies on Consumer Health Care Costs

The Impact of Federal Policies on Consumer Health Care Costs
By April Turner
4/6/2020

People will inevitably utilize the health care system at some point in their lives. Being able to pay for the services received by the provider is the concern of many Americans. That is why there must be legislation that increases health care access and keeps health care costs low for consumers. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has been a law since 2010, helped increase health care access for millions of Americans which has helped millions of people improve their health (Flores et al., 2017). However, federal policies that are aimed at improving health care access and reducing federal expenditures, may increase costs for consumers in the future. This article discusses how federal policies impact consumer health care costs and feasible changes that can be made to reduce health care costs.

Federal Policies and Consumer Health Care Costs

The ACA has different provisions that help keep it funded and working well. One of those provisions was a tax penalty for not enrolling in the program. The current presidential administration has weakened this legislation by repealing the tax penalty (Amadeo, 2019). This means that healthier people that are enrolled may drop their policies. This will lead to them utilizing emergency care in times of need which will increase their personal health care costs. For insurance companies, this also hurts because they will not have the healthy customers paying premiums to subsidize the customers that will utilize the health care system more often. Insurance companies may have to raise the price of premiums to cover the loss.

Changes that Can be Made

While there has been no acceptable ‘Medicare for All’ plan presented to the public, there are ways that health care costs can be reduced and keep everyone happy. According to an article in Flynn (2019), adding price tags for medical procedures and creating a health savings account (HAS) may help to reduce federal spending and consumer spending on health care by helping them to make better health care choices. For many people this may help. However, there should be accompanying health education to improve consumer understanding so they can make better health care decisions.

Conclusion

This article discussed the impact of federal policies on consumer health care costs and changes that can be made to reduce health care costs for the federal government and consumers. Health care legislation must place the patient first. If that does not happen, the patient will be left out and also left holding the bag.



References

Amadeo, K. (2019). Donald trump on health care: How trump's policies will raise premium prices for you. The Balance. Retrieved from https://www.thebalance.com/how-could-trump-change-health-care-in-america-4111422.

Flynn, S.M. (2019). Opinion: The u.s. can slash health-care costs 75% with 2 fundamental changes-and without 'medicare for all'. Marketwatch. Retrieved from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-can-slash-health-care-costs-75-with-2-fundamental-changes-and-without-medicare-for-all-2019-08-15.

Flores, G., Lin, H., Walker, C., Lee, M., Currie, J. M., Allgeyer, R., ... & Massey, K. (2017). The health and healthcare impact of providing insurance coverage to uninsured children: A prospective observational study. BMC public health, 17(1), 553. Doi: 10.1186/s12889-017-4363-z