The Affordable Care Act (2010) was created to give the uninsured and underinsured access to health care in the US. Should there really be any opposition to this Act? If so why?

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was created to help expand health insurance coverage to Americans who do not have access to health care due to having little or no insurance. The Act was a significant policy in the reform of the US health system.

In the United States (US), the Affordable Care Act was passed into law on the 23rd of March 2010. The whole idea was to 1) give the uninsured and underinsured access to private health insurance 2) Workers also have to sign up for private health insurance or be fined, and 3) to expand Medicaid so as to improve access to quality medical care for ignored groups like pregnant women (who were not insured enough) and mentally challenged people (Renna et al, 2021). The Medicaid expansion program was a problem for most states and the case was argued all the way to the Supreme Court who eventually ratified the Act. The President at the time was President Obama who said that the objective of the ACA was to give people more opportunity to affordable access to quality health care, (Campbell and Shore-Sheppard, 2020).

Over the years since its passage, the ACA has become a partisan political issue. There are many provisions in the act and researchers and political analyst have studied the provisions and come up with different interpretations. One of the issues has been the cost of implementing all the provisions of the act. The market for insurance increased as the rate of the uninsured decreased. Health insurance market became competitive as employers sought out cheapest insurance coverage. More people can now access the care they could not have otherwise afford due to the ACA.

When one examines the people who are most affected by the ACA, it is obvious that the underprivileged, the unemployed and low income earners are the groups targeted to gain from it. Looking even deeper these groups consist mainly of African Americans, the aged, and those who live in communities that don’t have good health care services. Why would any politician want to stop or change the ACA?