On March 23, 2010, the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into existence. The Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare”, is the most significant change in the United States healthcare system since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law. Although Obamacare initially suffered some setbacks due to technical problems and Barack Obama has been criticized heavily for his plan, he is not the first president who attempted to provide universal health care. Over 7 presidents pushed for national health care and failed, from President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 to President Bill Clinton in 1997.

What does the Affordable Care Act do?
The Affordable Care Act is a law that requires all Americans to have health insurance by 2014 or pay a monthly fee for months without insurance. With Obamacare, affordable, quality health care will be available for all Americans, and as a result, there will be a reduction in the growth of healthcare spending.

Did the United States need healthcare reform?
Quality health care is very expensive in the United States, and those without a job have an especially difficult time paying for insurance privately. It is estimated that about 1/6 of the population of the United States does not have health insurance. Should one fall ill or become sick, paying for the necessary medication/procedures will be next to impossible for the average American since such expenses are so expensive. A large percentage of bankruptcies in the United States arise as a result of a medical complication. In addition, other Americans (as many as 15 million) fall in a gap where their income is too low to pay for private health care, but too high to qualify for Medicaid. Although there are many other reasons for healthcare reform, one of the main reasons regards the topic of preexisting medical conditions. If one gets sick, their insurance provider will have to pay for a certain percentage of their medical costs. Additionally, if an applicant for insurance is at risk of a medical complication or has a preexisting medical condition, the insurance provider has the right to deny that person insurance or give them a ridiculously high insurance premium. This is a problem for many Americans, who often cannot receive the proper treatment because they were not able to obtain insurance. Furthermore, many teens and young adults feel that they are invincible and immune to illness because of their youth. However, no once is invincible, and most young adults will have tremendous difficulty paying for doctor’s appointments and medicine out-of-pocket. In addition, youthful insurance holders are essential to an insurance provider in order to offset the medical costs of riskier clients with medical complications. Medicare and Medicaid have a number of other issues and loopholes, and Obamacare closed a number of them.

The debate over Obamacare
On June 28, 2012, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act amidst Republican cries that it was unconstitutional. The issue would be pushed to the presidential election of 2012 between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. Should Romney be elected, Obamacare would have more than likely been repealed. Ironically, Romney would have repealed a health care plan modeled on the one that he signed into effect as the governor of Massachusetts… However, Barack Obama won the election, indicating that a majority of the American people did not want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The next opportunity to repeal the law will largely depend on the success of Obamacare for the next two years in the Presidential Election of 2016, and only time will tell if Obamacare will be remembered as the greatest healthcare reform since Medicare and Medicaid, or the worst.

For more information on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, visit the United States Department of Health and Human Service at www.hhs.gov/healthcare.