Introducing the policy
The government of the United States has remained committed to enhancing equality among the community members, hence, the reason why it has initiated various policies such as the Affordable Health Care Act (ACA). However, it is critical to note that ACA can be deemed as an expansion of the Patient Protection Act whose primary objective was to help community members without a health insurance cover access medical services with ease. Therefore, ACA aims at enhancing the delivery of health services to all the Americans irrespective of their social status. One key element of the act is that it has expanded the coverage of Medicaid to incorporate all the American citizens and the legal United States residents whose families live below the 133% of poverty level as formulated by the federal government. Nevertheless, legal residents will be still required to live in the United States for five years before they get enrolled in the health insurance program (Seith & Isakson, 2011). During this time, the residents can only benefit by being offered some tax subsidies hence, easing their burden of medical costs or by getting enrolled through a health insurance exchange program. Besides, the Affordable Care Act sets some standards for all health insurance providers, whose rules should be upheld at all times. For instance, the Act requires the health insurance providers to keep on catering for the children medical costs under their parents' health covers until they reach the age of twenty-six years as well as banning lifetime limit pertaining the health insurance coverage.
How the ACA is designed to address Inequality in Education
The success of an education system is measured in terms of its ability to give the opportunity to every student regardless of race, color, age, gender and economic status. One of the likely challenges facing the promotion of equal education includes disparity in healthcare provision. Mindo (2016) highlights the role played by the Obamacare in fighting against income inequality in America by the Affordable Care Act. The policy is set to increase spending on healthcare legislation in fighting against income inequality in America. On March 23, 2010, the US government implemented the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) to help in bridging the income gap and promote uniformity in health care. Once this is achieved, parents can channel more funds in educating their children and ensure high quality of education. Healthcare reforms are formulated to promote other sectors such as education and ensure that every American benefit from the institutions of learning in the country. It is a right of every student to acquire knowledge and every government in all parts of the world must protect that right to education (Carter, 2012). The disparity in the acquisition of knowledge is still a world concern, and the United States is also amongst the nations that are still faced with the challenge of promoting equality in its education sector. The ACA is works to ensure achievement of higher benefits since citizens can access affordable insurance cover for family members. According to Blumenthal, Abrams, and Nuzum (2015), ACA is capable of enabling more people to be insured since the number that were covered since the year 2010 when young adults were allowed to be incorporated in their parents' health policies increased from 7.0 to 16.4 million. This has led to a reduction in healthcare spending and improvement of the performance due to high quality, low costs, and coverage. Attaining of adequate resources to finance education is a big headache to most of the American people and even to the State and federal governments. For instance, there is a big educational gap that exists between the Latino & Black Americans with the Whites due to inequity in healthcare finance hence some families spend a lot of their income in paying for healthcare service. Consequently, they are left with little to channel to education for their children. Annually, the cost of higher education in the United States escalates. In the 2007-2008 academic years, university tuition and fees ranged from $2,300 to $23,800 (Carter, 2012). The rising cost is becoming a challenge to most of these low-income earners whose parents come from lower social, economic status. However, ACA is aimed at bridging the education gap between the different income classes of Americans through reduced costs on health. Obama Care Aimed at promoting positive policy changes in the health sector and make sure that majority of the Americans are covered. Health insurance was meant to enable parents to concentrate on other matters such as education and investments. Various policies exist under ACA for prevention of fraud in the health care such as increased scrutiny.
Part 3: synthesis of effectiveness
The government of the United States has remained committed to enhancing equality among the community members, hence, the reason it has initiated various policies such as the Affordable Health Care Act (ACT). One of the main areas where a high degree of inequality can be noted is within the health sector. Mindo points out that the higher costs of medical care have been one of the factors inhibiting the community members. More so, the individuals from poor backgrounds find it difficult to access education due to inadequate funds (Mindo, 2017). To curb this worrying trend, the federal government has laid down practical measures that would enable the community members to access medical services with ease. To guarantee the citizens that the nation is engaged in providing for their health interests, the United States passed the Affordable Care Act. It is estimated that since its implementation, the number of the Americans without a health insurance cover has significantly declined to 9.1% in the year 2015 from a sixteen percent level in 2010 (Obama, 2016). As a result, the number of people who have not been insured has declined to twenty-nine million from forty million. Obama notes that there have been various regulations that have been put in place to enhance the efficiency of the Affordable Health Act. For instance, the policy has broadened the coverage of the health insurance to include the maternity care as well as providing for the costs of mental disorders, which had been initially left out of the health insurance scheme (Obama 2016). As a result, families can now save a lot of that would have been used in providing for the costs of chronic ailments, which is usually very costly. As noted earlier, ACA has played a vital role in addressing some of the disparities among the community members one of them being education inequalities. Mindo claims that 63% of the Americans are convinced that inequality poses a significant threat to the community, which justifies that the effects of ACA cannot be underestimated (Mindo, 2017). According to Obama, the increased registration of the societal members into the ACA plan has enabled many Americans to start businesses and even enroll in educational institutions (Obama, 2016). It is worth noting that health care can be termed as one of the fundamental needs of an individual. Before implementation of ACA, most people were using their finances to pay for their medical bills, limiting their potential to cater for their school fees. In a scenario whereby a parent would be suffering from a chronic ailment, the children might be ultimately forced to drop out of school, which significantly decreases their potential of getting well-paying jobs in future. However, the state has dramatically changed since the inception of the affordable health policy. It is important to note that the Act aims at expanding its Medicaid programs to cater for the health costs of all the adults who live below the 138 percent of the poverty line (Blumenthal, Abrams & Nuzum, 2015). Such plan is an effective strategy that can enable the affected families set aside enough resources to cater for the educational costs of their young ones. Mindo is of the opinion that ACA is one of the most effective strategies adopted by the federal government to curb the increase in inequality levels among the community members.
Recommendations
The affordable care Act has significantly helped in correcting the market imbalances and reduction of uninsured Americans. Blumenthal, Abrams, and Nuzum (2015) assert that the ACA was quite effective n improving performance of the US healthcare system due to better quality, reduction in the cost of medication and care, greater accessibility for many people. However, it requires a few modifications to ensure that health costs are not hiked, or the policy is not be misused by stakeholders. Improvements of ACA will make it more useful in promoting equality in income gap the US encouraging more significant investment. The shortcomings experienced can lead to the exit of insurers from the exchanges leaving the citizens with few health plans. One recommendation is to improve the entire policy since affordability has become an issue in the recent times. The Federal Government can use more funds to help bring down the cost that the citizens pay to the insurance companies. This is possible through raising subsidies to insurances companies especially the ones that cover high-risk populations or increase the incomes of the majority of Americans. In this case, people will not be required to pay a huge amount of money for coverage thus will save for other purposes including education. Another recommendation is for the government to apply force to ensure that majority enroll for the policies. One of the significant challenges is that insurers are struggling with too few healthy people and too many sick individuals signing for various plans. Thus insurers encounter very many claims for each enrollee thus end up raising insurance fees. The action tends to discourage the young people from enrolling due to high cost on health to increase the effectiveness of ACA. The government must come up with clear rules and enforce them, as this will enable more people to apply for insurance and save on medical costs. One way is by raising the fines paid by people that do not purchase insurance and making it a legal obligation to enroll. Private insurance market achieves better results whenever there is extensive and diversified risk pool and for them to provide quality universal cover rules must be imposed on the citizens. The Affordable Care Act can also be improved by adoption of the public option. This entails enrolling the population to a single-payer system, which can help in lowering costs. Such action ensures that all Americans can benefit from the cover despite their level of income and acquire the same are given to wealthy individuals. The idea is to lower medical costs and channel the funds to other sectors such as education.
In conclusion
It is of great importance to note that the cost of medical services has been one of the factors behind the inequality in access to education among the community members over the years. In most cases, children more so the ones from low-income families and whose guardians might have been suffering from chronic ailments have limited chances to access education since the available finances are used in catering for the costs of health services. Nevertheless, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has played a vital role in safeguarding the educational rights of such children. Due to effective insurance programs like Medicaid, community members can nowadays access medical services quickly and without using many funds. Therefore, it would be rational to point out that ACA has led to a decrease in inequalities of the educational sector among the community members.
References
Blumenthal, D., Abrams, M., & Nuzum, R. (2015). The Affordable Care Act at 5 Years. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr1503614
Carter, (2012). Stubborn roots: Race, culture, and inequality in U.S. and South African schools. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mindo Jr, P. T. (2016). Obamacare and the Fight against Income Inequality. Undergraduate Economic Review, 13(1), 19.
Obama, B. (2016). United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and next Steps. Jama, 316 (5), 525-532. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5069435/
Proctor, B. D. (2016). Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States 2010. Report P60-256. September. Census Bure.
Seith, D. C., & Isakson, E. A. (2011). Who are America's poor children? Examining Health Disparities among Children in the United States.
