affordable care act

What does the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) Mean for Americans?

by

Yahoo finance recently asked the question “Obamacare Will Become Reality: What Does it Mean for You?” by Kevin Chupka, November 13, 2012. The article discusses the Affordable Care Act which I recently discussed on this blog in the article Health Care Should Not Be Framed in the Personal Responsibility Narrative. The Affordable Care Act of course is widely known as Obamacare as is slanted to go into effect in the U.S. in 2014. The article from Yahoo Finance article says “Under Obamacare, states have two key decisions to make: (1) Whether to create state-run exchanges where people can shop for and select their health insurance coverage from an online marketplace, and (2) Whether to expand Medicaid coverage for low-income Americans.” The article further discusses how pre-existing conditions will need to be covered and how it is quite possible that insurance … Read more

Health Care Should Not Be Framed in the Personal Responsibility Narrative

by

I read an interesting article by Micah L. Berman titled “From Health Care Reform to Public Health Reform” appearing in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (Fall 2011, pages 328-338). In the article Micah L. Berman discusses how the Affordable Care Act contains an “individualist/biomedical paradigm” which includes a number of provisions and programs which focus on public health but are in fact misaligned and at odds with public health research. He does this by first (A) arguing that in America there is a large cultural emphasis on personal responsibility which is shaped by powerful political, social, and psychological forces and second (B) that influential industries profit at the expense of public health. A) Micah states: “This paradigm focuses on what can be done by or to individual patients, and it leads to policies that seek to either (a) … Read more