The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act became law in March 2010. The law was the first element of the administration of President Barack Obama's comprehensive health care reforms. It provides a number of protections and privileges that, through perks like cost-sharing reductions, make health care coverage more reasonable and equitable. Low-income individuals are now covered by Medicaid and other health care programs thanks to new legislation. Nearly 12 million people have already signed up for the law's programs as of today. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act launched to mixed reviews, despite its overall success. Why the Patient Protection introduction was a mistake will be examined in this essay affordable care act was a failure and propose how the problem would have been avoided.Initial Launch Failure
The failure in the initial launch of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is majorly attributed to technical concerns even though other factors albeit minor also led to the failure. As part of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act the United States government launched HealthCare.gov. The main function of the web portal was to offer and create some form of awareness on health insurance market for consumers of insurance services to make informed decisions (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). The design and development of the website was mandatory under Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It was designed to offer comprehensive and understandable information on options in the health insurance marketplace (Bleiberg, 2015). Before the launch of the website, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services failed to follow management guidelines proposed by the Software Engineering Institute. This guidelines and practices included data management and monitoring, scheduling and predicting the effort required for project activities. In the initial master plan, the Center for Medicaid and Medicare services failed to take into consideration important development tasks (Bleiberg, 2015). For instance, estimation of efforts required to implement project activities were missing. Also missing in the initial plan was a failure to follow guidelines and best practices on how to manage project information. The Center Medicare and Medicaid failed to follow these key guidelines when storing project documents. There were millions of people attempting to sign up on HealthCare.gov immediately after the launch (BBC). The developers of the IT project had not anticipated such a large volume of users and thus failed to incorporate easily scalable architectures. Also, poor data collecting procedures and systems have caused some incomplete application being approved in the system. The department of health and Human services had also not participated actively in overseeing the development of HealthCare.gov.Efforts to Correct the Failure
In an effort to correct the failure, the Secretary for Health and Human services put in place a Chief Information Officer to provide oversight on all IT projects. The Chief Information Officer realized that several issues had not been raised in prior project meetings. As a result, the Department of Health and Human Services increased its management functions. Expansion of oversight and management functions brought about clear leadership, fast and efficient decision making in the development of the Information Technology project and more clarity in the project activities. The Department of Health and Human Services also formed the United States Digital services to address the failures in the initial launch of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The US Digital Service ensured simplicity and easier interaction between private insurance firms, private citizens, and the federal government.Lack of Information and Awareness
The initial failure was due to lack of information and awareness created about the law. There was much skepticism about the law from the members of the public. People feared that the legislation would have a huge impact on their lives and their families. The government failed to create information on impending changes and address concerns raised by the members of the public (Cohen, 2013). As the date for the launch of ACA approached, the level of fear among the citizens was high. The failure of HealthCare.gov, the official website for Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act prevented millions of people from accessing the much-needed information. Lack of sufficient information around ACA was mainly attributed to technology failure. Despite sinking millions of dollars into the technology project, the government failed to design and develop a website that functioned efficiently (Steinberg, 2013). The government would have avoided the mess by creating awareness and offering some information on the legislation. It should also have followed the guidelines provided by the Software Engineering Institute in development of its technology project. This would have enabled the members of the public to access information about the insurance marketplace from a well functioning ACA website.Purpose of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
The purpose of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was to expand coverage to about 15 percent of the American population who lack health insurance covers. The legislation requires every citizen to have health insurance, but provides subsidies to make it more affordable. The law provides a website where citizens can compare costs and choose the best form of coverage. During its launch, the law experienced some major failures that left embarrassed both politicians and the technical teams implementing the project.References
Bleiberg, J. (2015). A look back at technical issues with Healthcare.gov. Brookings. Retrieved Sept. 5, 2017, from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2015/04/09/a-look-back-at- technical-issues-with-healthcare-gov/
Cohen, T. (2013). Rough Obamacare Rollout: Four Reasons Why. CNN. Retrieved Sept. 5, 2017, from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/22/politics/obamacare-website-four- reasons/index.html
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (n.d). Healthcare.gov. Retrieved Sept. 5, 2017, from https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act/
Steinberg, J. (2013). 5 Lessons For Entrepreneurs From Obamacare’s Failed Launch. Forbes. Retrieved Sept. 5, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/josephsteinberg/2013/10/06/5-lessons-for-entrepreneurs- from-obamacares-failed-launch/#27658a6333ef
Why is Obamacare so controversial? (2017). BBC. Retrieved Sept. 5, 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-24370967
