The ratification of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” has become one of the major milestones in the context of the development of modern health care in the US. Having been introduced in 2010, this act was primarily predetermined by the issue of the socio-economic gap in terms of health care fundamentals accessibility for the vast majority of the state population. Essentially, the ACA places emphasis on the following federal provisions:
- Expand access to insurance coverage by encouraging employers to cover insurance for their workers with little exception, securing insurance for people with income below the federal poverty guidelines, and expanding insurance accessibility for children and young adults;
- Increase consumer insurance protections by prohibiting the coverage cancelation of plans and monetary caps;
- Emphasize prevention and wellness by creating national resources to allocate payments and financial aid on the aspects of primary health prevention and public health promotion;
- Improve health quality and system performance by investing in the development of medical information technology and scholarly medical research;
- Promote workforce development by providing more options for continuous professional growth and training, as well as creating more accessible tertiary education options for potential medical students (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 2010)
Considering the aforementioned provisions, it would be reasonable to conclude that the ratification of the ACA depends greatly on the qualifications of nurses, as they are the ones to secure empirical data collection. Indeed, nurses are educated and trained with the purpose of proper interaction with both the patients and public institutions in order to convey relevant data. Hence, to secure the further positive outcomes of the ACA, nurses are to communicate relevant health states of the population that would eventually regulate the patterns of insurance coverage and finance allocation.
Reference
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111–148, 124 Stat. 119. (2010).