Introduction
Having been brought up in the low-income family background, I comprehend the impacts of poverty that low-income families experience and the hardship of accessing healthcare services. Many low-income families struggle to survive, which prompts that preference using the incomes they make accessing basic needs like shelter, food, and clothing to seeking healthcare services. Healthcare and education are other basic needs, and education is given less priority. Resultantly, many low-income families lack health insurance coverage which escalates healthcare services access hardship.
I hold the position; you fervently ought to vote against the American Health Care Act (AHCA) and lobby the House of Representative colleague to maintain a similar position. The reasons behind my opposition of the AHCA act are not limited to and include:
- The act encourages not netizens to register in the federally subsidized insurance policies since it withdraws the federal tax if they fail to register in at least one insurance policy.
- The act discourages insurers from offering insurance benefits like preventive care.
- AHCA would suspend Medicaid, complicating low-income individuals’ healthcare coverage since it reduces Medicaid support.
I believe my stance is valuable. My decision to reject the act is premised on the belief the act could subject more low-income earners to ignoring obtaining health insurance coverage, hence predisposing the individuals to extreme risk of being infected with disease conditions and subsequent poor health results which emanate from acute infections. Removing the federal tax penalty due to failure to register in the federally subsidized health insurance plans could hearten low-income persons not to get health insurance. That detrimentally may affect the general population’s health status. Conversely, AHCA permits the insurers to formulate health insurance plans freely following their preference with zero regards for compulsory services such as preventive care. In addition, low-income families struggle to access care services across America due to financial hardships they face. Giving the healthcare insurance providers the leeway of not offering preventive care services to the population of concern is detrimental.
The rationale for my position
The US Census Bureau data indicate that uninsured people have increased from approximately 27.3 million in 2016 to 29.7 million in 2019. This represents an increase of 8% or about 2.3 million people, as noted by Keisler-Starkey and Bunch (2020). There has been no rise in uninsured individuals in the United States since 2010. Nonetheless, following the implementation of the ACHA, an increase was observed in 2017. The American Health Care Act (ACHA) passage resulted in an amendment to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law by President Obama’s administration in 2010.
Moreover, the primary goal of the Affordable Care Act was ensuring healthcare costs were significantly reduced, allowing healthcare services access by the poor population. In the United States, a lack of access to healthcare services has resulted in poor health outcomes. Besides, poor health outcomes have also been exacerbated by a lack of preventive care. According to Obama (2016), low-income individuals frequently seek healthcare services only when faced with a critical condition, and their failure to seek preventative care emanates from the inability to afford. Therefore, the Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010, introduced government subsidies, allowing the poor to gain access to and afford healthcare insurance. Furthermore, the Affordable Care Act imposed certain regulations on insurance providers to provide health insurance benefits and preventive care services. The inclusion of these guidelines in the ACA aided in understanding the primary challenge confronting the low-income population. As a result of this challenge, the low-income cohort is more likely to feel the impacts of chronic conditions because they only seek healthcare services whenever conditions worsen, complicating the attainment of positive healthcare outcomes.
Furthermore, the ACA mandated that low-income people enroll in federally subsidized healthcare plans. The introduction of the ACHA does not bring about similar positive health impacts as the ACA. Instead, it functioned to weaken ACA’s contribution. Obama (2016) asserted that the removal of assistance by the federal government from economically disadvantaged persons causes them not to register in health insurance plans, which demoralizes the acquisition of health insurance.
Furthermore, the AHCA fails to require health insurance mainstays to provide preventive services in subsidized plans. As a result, ACA’s objective is eroded. Among the critical healthcare-associated confrontations encountered by the poor in the US is the lack of preventive care services, making it difficult to seek care services and look for them at later disease stages, impeding the attainment of good outs. Furthermore, the increase in the proportion of the uninsured way from AHCA’s implementation suggests it has a low efficacy compared to the ACA, making it an improper remedy to exterminate and fend off the challenges impeding access to care services. Therefore, because of its failure and negative consequences, AHCA ought to be repealed and replaced with the ACA or another act capable of addressing the existing challenges and providing an amicable solution by and by enabling quality healthcare access.
My Member’s Stance on AHCA
My member as well rejected AHCA, citing similar reasons. Members disputed that health-related acts should bring positive outcomes and fend off healthcare challenges. The following are some pertinent concerns raised to support my representative’s similar opposition stance: the first stresses AHCA’s efficacy. I considered how effective this act would be in solving the problem available before my decision-making. As illustrated in the discussion, AHCA has become ineffective linked to negative health outcomes. Second, I investigated the AHCA’s strategies and discovered that it proposed eliminating federal support for Medicaid, discouraging the economically poor from enrolling in healthcare plans, and raising healthcare costs, thus forcing those with specific subscriptions to pay the expense themselves. Third, I juxtaposed AHCA’s achievement to ACA Act and discovered the initial act effectively tackled the problem and offered a remedy, thus eliminating the perceived barrier and improving healthcare services’ accessibility.
My nursing field experience has significantly impacted my advocacy on the AHCA. My nursing experience as a professional nurse has assisted me in evaluating AHCA’s efficacy in healthcare service provision. Besides, the expertise aids in decision-making by examining the positive healthcare effects. The experience has helped me comprehend that AHCA would rob low-income populations and persons with disability to fund a tax cut for wealthy Americans. Furthermore, the bill powered the GPO’s war on women by decapitalizing Planned Parenthood and replacing it with sexual assault, pregnancy, domestic violence, and C-sections to its long list of anterior conditions which insurers may employ to refuse health insurance coverage or surcharge premiums (Nurse.org Staff).
Conclusion
In conclusion, I strongly assert that the ACA worked better than the AHCA. AHCA was found to be ineffective after evaluating the performance of the two acts. In addition, the AHCA resulted in negative health outcomes. As a result of the lack of positive effects in healthcare, I believe it is critical to its rejection. As a result, I would advocate for the development of other acts that can improve the overall health of all people, irrespective of economic status. Finally, I would recommend that the AHCA be withdrawn because, instead of improving access to healthcare, it adversely impacts the quality of healthcare among the United States population, making it ineffective.
References
Keisler-Starkey, K & Bunch, L.N., (2020). Health Insurance Coverage in the United States:
Nurse.org Staff (2017). What Nurses Are Saying About The American Health Care Act (AHCA).
Retrieved from: https://nurse.org/articles/how-nurses-feel-about-the-ahca/
Obama, B. (2016). The United States health care reform: progress to date and next steps. Jama, 316(5), 525-532.
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