Health Care Reform Bill - Essay Example

Health Care Reforms According to Swan and Haas (2011), PPACA initiatives listed were favored by several national reports. First, the healthcare reform bills were put in place to enhance transparency and integrity in the program. Secondly, ensure all Americans have access to quality health care. Thirdly, make considerations to the providers of health care such as the hospital workforce. Fourthly, provide for public health improvement and prevent chronic diseases. According to the Thomas official website (2011), employers were expected to provide their employees with health insurance or take the option of subsidizing their employees’ healthcare by paying the government.

This was the healthcare reform bills as at 2009 while they were still pending. H.R. 3590 Senate Bill and H.R. 3962 House Bill were proposed to provide Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and Affordable Health Care for America Act respectively. As healthcare responds to the trends in cost, there would be a continuous catalyze on distribution and supply of healthcare. Problems are argued to arise in the post reform era on management of the trends of cost by deflecting the distribution network downwards and that of the supply chain.

For example, between 1960 and 2008 the national expenditure healthcare cost grew from $28 billion to $2.34 trillion at an average growth of 10% annually, (Obamacare, 2011). The main difference with the House bill was its lack of surtax on wealthy individuals. H.R. 3590 has been described as having slow effects on different reforms. For example, the individual mandate has been schedule for 2014, a delay of a year. In that, if an individual does not obtain insurance coverage, they will face a penalty of $750 individually or the options of paying 2% gross income depending on the greater option.

Regardless of the employees not mandatorily responsible for provisions of insurance to their employees, they are likely to face the same effects. In support of the Senate Bill H.R. 3590, legislators argued that consumers were to benefit through the protection from unjustly practices by insurance providers. Also, the major advantage of the passed bill was the health accessibility and affordability to a larger population. As such, these legislators argued that U.S. deficit as at 2020 was likely to have reduced by approximately $100 billion.

However, despite the above advantages, different groups opposed these reforms. First, they argued that the health care quality will be affected negatively yet its costs would have been increased. Different representatives from the congress approximated that the cost of the law at $2.5 trillion at a span period of 10 years and as a result, U.S. will most likely get into higher debts as noted by Coleman, Checkland, McDermott & Harrison, (2011). The Senate Bill was opposed by few stakeholders in the healthcare such as health insurers who argued that the private insurers were expected to maintain a minimum of 8% in premiums.

Secondly, they opposed it in recognition that there will be reduction of insurance costs among small businesses. Thirdly, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce there was lack of principles in the reform that affected health status, food and drugs cases and fragmentation in the market as such they opposed this bill. On the other hand, pharmaceutical industries, physicians and AARP went in favor of the