Mukherjee 1

Isha Mukherjee

Mr. Speice

ISM I

09 October 2020

The pros and cons of Obamacare

Assessment 4 - Research

Date:​ March 2017

Subject:​ Successes and drawbacks of Obamacare

MLA citation:

L. Manchikanti, et al. “A Critical Analysis of Obamacare: Affordable Care or Insurance

for Many and Coverage for Few?” ​Undefined,​  , 2017,

www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Critical-Analysis-of-Obamacare%3A-Affordable

-Care-Manchikanti-Helm/e39d5396834b9722115870ce2103175085f045d8.

Accessed 09 Oct. 2020.

Assessment

It is generally understood that third world nations have less efficient medical care

compared to first-world nations. Many factors cause this disparity such as economics,

infrastructure, and insurance. If third world nations were able to develop a government-funded

insurance plan that was both affordable for the consumer and government, many of these health

disparities would be remedied. When attempting to create an adequate insurance plan it is

important to study the various successes and failures of pre-existing insurance plans/programs.

One of these programs is called Obamacare.

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The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, is a relatively new healthcare

program in the United States. It was created in order to allow more people to have access to

healthcare, mandate that providers cannot deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions,

improve the quality of care, and lower overall healthcare costs ​(L. Manchikanti et al.)​. The idea

was that if all people had insurance then its cost would decrease. Although conceptually sound,

after implementation many flaws were found. There are two conceptual criteria that all

insurance plans must have. Affordability, the ability for people to pay for their plan. Access, the

process of getting the health care needed. These are the major struggles of healthcare in third

world nations which explains why there has yet to be a sufficient insurance plan for the poor.

The first drawback of the ACA was that people who were not associated with it were still

getting affected. Over twenty million additional people were able to acquire insurance but six

million lost their insurance. Alongside Obamacare, new laws concerning all healthcare plans

were passed. These new laws stated that insurance companies cannot deny coverage based on

preexisting conditions and a person can remain on their parents’ plan till they are twenty-six ​(L.

Manchikanti et al.)​. Insurance companies who did not follow these criteria had to drop a few of

their customers in order to fix their policies. Additionally, this forced private companies to

change their plans and cover more people therefore they increased their prices. Although on

paper this seems bad, the laws themselves were a success as they fixed two major problems in

healthcare. People with preexisting conditions struggling to get insurance and eighteen years old

getting removed from their parents’ insurance plan and going without insurance until they can

afford it by themselves.
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Another drawback is that middle class people were getting less support. This is bad for

people such as small business owners who are not considered poor but do not receive insurance

from their corporate employer because they do not have one. They are their own employer.

Larger companies can negotiate insurance prices for their employees but small business owners

have to settle for the nonnegotiable face value prices (L. Manchikanti et al.). Although sad, this

is very specific to developed nations and does not need to be taken into consideration when

trying to propose an insurance plan for third world nations because those insurance plans will be

exclusively for the poor and lower middle class.

Additionally, politics played a part in the rollout of Obamacare because some states did

not expand Medicaid in the way that Obamacare needed due to political ideologies.

The final drawback of Obamacare was the implementation of exchange enrollment. The

idea is that the consumer can go to a marketplace with insurance providers who are under

Obamacare making them more affordable by eliminating the broker aspect of regular insurance.

This did not work for two reasons. Firstly, most consumers were not able to decipher the

differences between the various insurance plans therefore they would pick whichever one was

most heavily advertised or had the lowest premium (L. Manchikanti et al.). Having a low

premium seemed cheaper, but it ended up being as costly as regular insurance plans or in some

cases more expensive. This was because the low premium was compensated for with higher

copays, deductibles, uncovered benefits, and more. The second reason is that partaking in

exchange enrollment was not profitable for the private companies so they would leave the

marketplace. The way exchange enrollment was expected to work was that various companies

would join the market and compete for consumers. This would lower the insurance plans costs
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while bringing in many new consumers, a net profit. When the companies realized that they were

making much more money prior to being affiliated with Obamacare they started to leave (L.

Manchikanti et al.). As companies leave, competition decreases, and prices increase. Overall,

making Obamacare not significantly better or worse than regular private insurances.

Although exchange enrollment was unsuccessful in The United States it could be

successful in a third world nation such as India. In India, there are only a few insurance

companies, many of which are government-owned. This is beneficial because the

government-run insurance companies will not back out of their own government-funded program

unlike how in the U.S. the companies backed out of the ACA. Also, the state governments in

India lack money therefore they are more likely to welcome any federal government aid or

government-funded programs, regardless of political affiliation.

To conclude, along with the many benefits of Obamacare it has some drawbacks in the

form of all insurance prices rising, middle class people receiving less support, politics getting in

the way of full implementation, and exchange enrollment. Obamacare is a good blueprint when

attempting to create an insurance plan for the poor in underdeveloped countries regardless of its

problems. The program helped many people who initially couldn't afford healthcare, attain

healthcare and many of its problems were deep-rooted in economics and politics that are specific

only to the United States.

​Annotations:

A Critical Analysis of Obamacare: Affordable Care or Insurance for Many and Coverage for
Few?
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