Why was the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was mainly enacted as a means to increase coverage for citizens to access healthcare. More Americans, therefore, have access to a wider range of coverage from insurance companies which enables the better provision of healthcare and promotion of a healthy population (Nickitas et al., 2019). Nonetheless, the act has its downside. This can be identified through various components adopted which negatively impact particular populations. One is the Medicaid expansion. It represents an increase in eligibility for coverage of all U.S citizens with income up to 133% of the poverty line (Glied & Jackson, 2017). Therefore, every citizen within a state that participated in the Medicaid program would receive coverage through the affordable care act. Consequently, the quality of care is negatively affected since there are longer waiting times or shorter visits with healthcare providers to accommodate the increasing number of patients (Wasserman et al., 2019). Additionally, there is increased paperwork which is a contributing factor to burnout within healthcare providers resulting in understaffing. The second component is increased taxes and premiums on medical providers. To ensure funding of the affordable care act, there was a considerable increase in taxes for example on medical devices and prescription/pharmaceutical sales. Such increase, therefore, results in higher prices for prescription drugs or devices which limits access to low-income patients who may be in need.
