Strategies to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have been subjected to political debate associated with politicians’ personal interests. Leaders’ selfishness influences decisions to maximize voters’ support, and normally, it is not uncommon to witness misrepresentation of information to sway public opinion. In reviewing the ACA and its purpose of enactment in the year 2010, it is clear that the aims were to expand care access, ensure affordability of coverage and lower the number of uninsured citizens (Quadagno & Lanford, 2019).
To realize such objectives, legislators enacted marketplaces where insurers could provide direct policies to people without employers’ coverage. ACA has been operational, and health insurance coverage is noted to rise while many people enjoy subsidized or free care from Medicaid expansions or tax credits (Congress.Gov, 2021). Despite these changes, the legislation faces repeal and replacement forces. The purpose of the paper is to explain legislators’ and voters’ perspectives on repealing and replacing ACA from a cost-benefit analysis.
Efforts to repeal or replace the ACA are affected by the legislators’ approach to fulfilling interests while pushing the policy change in favor of voters. Some efforts proposed by legislators regarding the ACA bill ate deemed to be motivated by self-gain. For example, from a cost-best analysis, one of the proposals to replace the policy is to have a single-payer system- the American Health Care Act (AHCA). Legislators supported this mode as it will include repealing mandates, introducing continuous coverage, and replacing income-oriented subsidies with fixed age-based.
By applying this strategy, the federal deficit would rise by about $38 million before reducing in a period of 6 years, after which it will low insurance enrollments of many Americans (Quadagno & Lanford, 2019). Since legislators’ primary objective is to be reelected, applying such an approach gains them voters’ support by appealing to government deficit persons (Jacobs & Mettler, 2018). However, individuals who will luck the insurance coverage may not support the amendments and are unlikely to reelect legislators. As such, there is a need to make other efforts to repeal the ACA and win voters.
Among the measures to consider is repealing ACA and making no replacement to allow the government to save on healthcare expenditure to a significant figure. The amount raised from savings would be channeled to other endeavors and, in that way appeal more to taxpayers who feel burdened (Milstead & Short, 2019). The implication would also favor voters who can access healthcare without the ACA, hence expanding policeman’s popularity among them.
Legislative leaders are aware that voters would likely support a policy system in much of their favor. As such, it is unlikely that they will be reelected if they push forward a policy that is unappealing to voters’ concerns (Jacobs et al., 2019). Therefore, decisions concerning positions of national policies have to align with individuals’ interests. Ideally, the political decisions are guided by voters’ expectations and agreeably; the debate revolving around ACA is polarized due to these anticipations. In that case, politicians are subjected to dilemmas of making proposals that appeal to voters’ majority in specific constituents.
In, summary, amending legislation can makeover the differences between government and congressional preferences. Either decision regarding the proposal on ACA has potential benefits and setbacks. For instance, a specific member of the public can be affected by repeal efforts, while through vote analysis, there could be issues with leaders. Generally, the decision of voters impacts choices made by legislative leaders in positioning national policies, which is evidenced by the long-debated issue of repealing or replacing the ACA.
References
Congress.Gov. (2021). Actions – S.352 – 117th Congress (2021-2022): A bill to amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to reduce health care costs and expand health care coverage to more Americans. Congress. Web.
Jacobs, L. R., & Mettler, S. (2018). When and how new policy creates new politics: Examining the feedback effects of the Affordable Care Act on public opinion. Perspectives on Politics, 16(2), 345-363. Web.
Jacobs, L. R., Mettler, S., & Zhu, L. (2019). Affordable Care Act Moving to New Stage of Public Acceptance. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 44(6), 911-917. Web.
Milstead, J. A., & Short, N. M. (2019). Health policy and politics: A nurse’s guide (6th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Quadagno, J., & Lanford, D. (2019). The Obama health care legacy: the origins, implementation, and effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act of 2010. In Looking Back on President Barack Obama’s Legacy (pp. 69-92). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Web.