Health Law Essentials

Health Law Essentials
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Abstract
Health insurance remained discriminatory since 1965 until the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. The changes to the health insurance laws have allowed nearly 40% of the previously uninsured persons’ access insurance and improved the health of the population. The Obamacare as it is commonly referred to, has ensured the uninsured and marginalized groups based on their medical history or poverty levels were forcefully integrated into the insured bracket to increase the number of insured persons across the globe and expected to attain full insurance by 2019. The legislation has allowed for the radical reform of both the public and private health insurance sector. The enactment of the law allowed for the improvement of the health system across the nation. Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act has been digressed by the Supreme Court in two landmark proceedings. The three critical points of the insurance act resonate with the rulings of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the legislation.
Health Law Essentials
Health insurance remained discriminatory since 1965 until the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. The changes occasioned by the Act have resulted in a series of lawsuits filed across various jurisdictions across the nation, and which are expected to alter or strengthen the legislation (Teitelbaum & Wilensky, 2017). The Obamacare as is it’s commonly referred to, has ensured the uninsured and marginalized groups based on their medical history or poverty levels were forcefully integrated into the insured bracket to increase the number of insured persons across the globe and expected to attain full insurance by 2019.

The changes have allowed nearly 40% of the previously uninsured persons’ access insurance and improved the health of the population. Analysts believe the legislation enforced population health in an economy deemed to prefer capitalistic tendencies in all nearly all facets of their lives. The feature has attributed to the increase in health levels across most jurisdictions across the globe.
Secondly, the legislation has allowed for the radical reform of both the public and private health insurance sector. The legislation introduced bands which are different sets of groups lumped together to create specific bands, which access health insurance at different prices. Wealthy and middle-income earners pay the bulk of the premiums collected to ensure the continuity of the program (Courtemanche, Marton, Ukert, Yelowitz, & Zapata, 2017). Persons under the government levels receive subsidies and only required to pay a small fraction of their premiums. Finally, the enactment of the law allowed for the improvement of the health system across the nation. The law required all healthcare institutions to improve the quality of healthcare provision, which has resulted to better healthcare systems and improvement of population health across the nation. The three key points elaborate on the importance of the act in ensuring that reforms were victorious in the insurance sector, improvement in the healthcare systems and reallocation of assets to all marginalized individuals (Uberoi, Finegold, & Gee, 2016).
Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act has been digressed by the Supreme Court in two landmark proceedings. The first proceeding centered on two critical issues being; expansion of the Medicaid through the Health secretary and the authority to tax and spend on non-exempt individuals within the realms of the legislative tax power imposed on the Congress. The issues were in authority of ambiguous interpretation of the legislation and misuse of the provisions in the future without the adequate explanations provided by the Supreme Court. The Court in a majority ruling of 5-4 ruled that the legislation was constitutional. The court ruled that the secretary of health had only power to control new funding to Medicaid and could not repeal existing Medicaid support to even non-compliant states. Secondly, minimum essential coverage is only a requirement based on the congressional taxing power and not its commerce power (Rosenbaum, 2011). Minimum essential coverage is critical in ensuring that the uninsured persons safeguarded under the law get insurance within the realm of the law. Finally, the individual mandate can never be barred based on the provisions of the Anti-Injunction Act.
The constitutionality of the requirement by most Americans to have insurance or pay taxes as established by the Congress based on the commerce power was also upheld by the Supreme Court in reaffirming the constitutionality of the Act. The law provides that all individuals covered under the Act must purchase insurance or pay penalties for failing to have insurance. The procedure ensures that the expected effect of the legislation is achieved across the nation. The three critical points of the insurance act resonate with the rulings of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the legislation.
References
Courtemanche, C., Marton, J., Ukert, B., Yelowitz, A., & Zapata, D. (2017). Early Impacts of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage in Medicaid Expansion and Non‐Expansion States. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 36(1), 178-210.
Rosenbaum, S. (2011). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: implications for public health policy and practice. Public health reports, 126(1), 130-135.
Teitelbaum, J. & Wilensky, S. (2017). Essentials of health policy and law. Burlington, Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Uberoi, N., Finegold, K., & Gee, E. (2016). Health insurance coverage and the Affordable Care Act, 2010-2016. United States Department of Health and Human Services.