Legislative changes in the Affordable Care Act

Legislative Changes in the Affordable Care Act
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Institution

Legislative Changes in the Affordable Care Act
The affordable care act faced several changes in the wake of the new Republican party’s rise to power in 2016. The changes included the changes in the insurance protection which were a vital pillar of the Obama era healthcare policy. The law was controversial with democratic leaders viewing it as a way of sabotaging a successful health care policy plan that protected the citizens from exploitation. This paper will discuss the challenges of the new policy and the effects on the consumers and insurance providers.
One of the significant changes done by the Republican administration was changes in parts of the previous law that required small businesses needed to attain healthcare insurance from small-group markets. The small insurance plans would meet the patient protection policies including premium rating restrictions. President Trump’s administration withdrew this law. This implies that those with pre-existing conditions may be compelled to pay high premiums for insurance. Other changes included the elimination of the elimination of cost-sharing reduction payments that aided low-income earners (Vogenberg & Smart, 2018).
The law faced challenges in 2017 as the Republican party wanted to change the entire healthcare plan. The initial changes to the Affordable Care Act failed. There was an uproar from the public and the Democratic party that the overhaul of the health care policy would have detrimental effects to the people.

The Republican party with the aim of making changes made amendments to the existing law that successfully eliminated cost-sharing reduction payments and policy in small business markets which came to effect in 2018. The passing of the changes would mean that some of the protections that low-income earners and patients with pre-existing conditions in small-group markets would lose insurance (National Conference of Legislatives, 2018). Although the labor department indicated that there is a projected increase in the number of people insured, the policies would mean that consumers may be exploited for not needing to meet the previous Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requirements (Vogenberg & Smart, 2018).

References
Vogenberg, F. R., & Smart, M. (2018). Regulatory Change Versus Legislation Impacting Health Care Decisions and Delivery. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 43(1), 34–38.
National Conference of Legislatives. (2018). Retrieved from National Conference of Legislatives: http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/health-insurance.aspx